I have just started reading What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell, another Christmas present that has finally found its way to the front of the reading queue. Gladwell’s books are supposed to make you think a bit, but this one had me thinking before I even opened it. On the front it says “Author of Blink and Outliers” and I can’t really understand why it doesn’t say “Author of The Tipping Point“.Surely The Tipping Point is his best-known book? The book propelled the concept into public consciousness and put the phrase ‘tipping point’ into common usage.  There have been a few ideas that have taken hold in the last ten years or so – long tails, nudging, black swans and the wisdom of crowds, and I would argue that tipping points is right up there with them.
I thought Blink was interesting enough, but not as gripping a concept as tipping points. I’ll be honest and confess that I haven’t read Outliers yet, partly because I read several reviews and descriptions and it didn’t sound that great a concept to me, although I think it got more publicity and got talked about more than Blink, so perhaps the cover should have said “Author of The Tipping Point and Outliers” instead.
It is a trivial thing to get wound up about I know, but it is like promoting a Steve Coogan show by saying “The man behind Tommy Saxondale and Pauline Calf” and totally ignoring Alan Partridge, ((A-Ha!))Â describing Midge Ure as “a former member of Slik and the Rich Kids”, or having posters of Avatar proudly boasting “from the director of True Lies and The Abyss”.
As a book category nerd I would say that Tipping Point was originally picked up as a book relating to management techniques and the others as popular psychology. The publisher is, therefore, making sure that he is comparing apples with apples. That said my pet hate is a book that is promoted as ‘interdisciplinary’ or some other ‘crossing boundaries’ bollocks – where do I shelve it so that customers can find it then?
But What the Dog Saw is a real mixture. Only on the first section at the moment, but that is about business techniques as much as anything.
But what about authors who produce books in several fields? Bill Bryson has books on language, Shakespeare, travel, and science. I imagine the science one appealed as much to fans of his travel writing, who might not normally go near the science section.
Are there just too many categories now?