I *still* read Malcolm Gladwell's work

I became a fan of Malcolm Gladwell's work after I read Tipping Point. I couldn't wait to lay my hands on Blink -- which I enjoyed although I didn't think it had enough continuity to justify being more than an accidental book. Outliers was a good read until I found out that MG hadn't spoken to *anyone* with *any* real flying experience before expounding his theory of why Korean planes crashed more often than American ones.

So why did I still pick up What The Dog Saw?

Do I believe that MG is a great writer who comes up with path-breaking hypotheses that connect seemingly unrelated dots? No. He isn't a great writer; I find him verbose and eager to describe things orthogonal to the topic at hand -- color of lipstick, size of room, nature of blinds, and other trivia. I find the "connections" that he makes tenous at best and the theories that he expounds weak and in-effectual.

So, why am I not putting down his work? I got my answer when I started reading What The Dog Saw.

I read MG's work because it puts together information that would otherwise be completely out of my orbit. To the extent that I would never expend energy trying to dig it up. The history of hair-colour in America, for instance. Does it impact my life? No. Do I agree with the conclusions MG draws? No. Did I get to know some fact that I did not know earlier? Yes. Did I enjoy reading it? Kind-of.

To sum up, for me MG's work is a collection of easy-to-read trivia, with maybe one or two facts that I save for future reference. Wikipedia-lite may be a good description for the way I treat his work ;-).