What the Dog Saw (Gladwell)

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for What the Dog Saw:

1. According to Steven Pinker's review in the New York Times, Gladwell's essays in What the Dog Saw have to do with "counterintuitive knowledge." In this book what findings, specifically, seem to subvert or turn common sense on its head?

2. Another way in which Gladwell styles his essays is that he uses specific set pieces and and expands them into a wider inquiry. Consider some examples—say, ketchup or hair dye. Where else does Gladwell move from an initial focus on a narrow topic to the larger implications.

3. Gladwell also uses the "straw man" method of persuasion. He begins with a premise that we easily accept (the straw man) then proceeds to knock it down. It leads to surprise, a sort of "wow, I never saw it that way!" What are some of the essays in which Gladwell uses the straw dog approach? Do you find it affective?

4. Which essays did you most enjoy and why? Which surprised you the most?

5. Gladwell has sometimes been described—in this and other works—as facile. In other words, he's been accused of reaching for easy conclusions that fit his overall view, while sometimes ignoring messy evidence that doesn't. Can you find any evidence that this is the case? Does Gladwell present a world that is too neatly wrapped? Or is he simply exploring anomalies where he finds them?

Now for more a few specific questions:

6. Why do we have one type of ketchup as opposed to multiple varieties of mustard?

7. From the essay, "Blowing Up," talk about Taleb Nassim and his theory of markets and investment. Can his basic ideas be applied to other experiences or events?

8. If by any chance you've read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, do Cesar Millan's dog training methods seem familiar...or completely different than what David Wroblewski wrote about in his novel?

9. In "Open Secrets," how does Gladwell connect Enron, Watergate, prostate cancer research, and Osama Bin Laden— three seemingly disparate subjects? Do you agree with his assessment? What is the difference, according to Gladwell, between puzzles and mysteries? Is this just semantics...or is he reaching for something deeper?

10. Talk about what Gladwell has to say about the accuracy of mammograms as a diagnostic tool.

11. Do you accept Gladwell's argument about plagiarism in the essay, "Something Borrowed"?

12. In "The Art of Failure," Gladwell discusses the difference between choking and panicking? How does he differentiate the two? Are they really mutually exclusive as he presents them? What do you think of his assessment of John F. Kennedy, Jr.'s plane crash? Is Gladwell's analysis glib... or has he hit on some buried structure of the human psyche?

13. In his chapter about the Challenger explosion, do you agree with his assessment that "we don't really want the safest of all possible worlds"? Do you believe that any of the disasters in Part Two could have been foretold and prevented?

14. In what way is criminal profiling not "a triumph of forensic analysis," but a "party trick"? Does Gladwell make his point?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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