(I'm also happy when I see the byline of Hendrick Hertzberg, on whom I've long had an intellectual crush, or a review by Anthony Lane, whom I find both brilliant and terrifying. I also just like seeing the names Sasha Frere-Jones or Burkhard Bilger. One of my friends once pointed out that we will never write for the New Yorker because our names are not cool enough.)
So if I enjoy Gladwell's pieces, and I always do when reading his fine magazine, why do I find What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures to be so tedious?
This of course varies according to the topic - I could spend days reading about the banning of pit bulls ("Troublemakers"), the failure of Enron's practices ("The Talent Myth) and the Catholic inventor of the birth control pill ("John Rock's Error"), because these are areas I find deeply interesting. I think the essay "Something Borrowed" is a brilliant examination of art and plagiarism.
I struggle more with essays involving statistics and financial theory such as "Blowing Up," as discussion of normal distribution sends me right back to reading the latest Jennifer Weiner. It's not that Gladwell isn't an excellent writer or that What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures isn't good, it's just that you may find yourself picking and choosing among the essays you will want to read. That may lead you to pick it up from a library rather than investing the money in buying it.
I also think that it makes a difference if you read the New Yorker - I found myself sometimes irked that I would get two pages into an essay and realize I had read it a few years earlier. This shouldn't bother me as much as it does, but when you are trying to read 100 books in a year you become a little irascible about re-reading.
