A very fast read, with enough intriguing anecdotes and stray, smart claims to merit a look. But I do find it ironic that a book about the merits of snap judgment would be so aggravatingly repetitive, constantly reminding readers about anecdotes from earlier in the novel, constantly repeating its argument. (I enjoy Gladwell's essays in the New Yorker, and perhaps he just plays better in such small doses, where the emphasis is more on the well-polished narrative than on the analysis built therefrom.)

I only wrote that sentence so I could say "therefrom."

And I may be knocking a star off my evaluation because--and this is not necessarily Gladwell's fault--I've heard two managerial types, one who (alas) kind of manages me, using "insights" gleaned from the book for easily-digestible leadership nuggets (tm), sluggish homilies which the speakers have mistaken for profound yet homespun wisdom. I guess I'd rather blink than look around for someone's displaced cheese, but I still resent the whiff of corporate self-help nonsense which you can faintly pick up from these pages.