Every day for the past few months I would excitedly look forward to my work commute across this dreary city; I was listening to Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History. As I was fiddling around with the various podcast apps trying to find one that I could use while driving without getting myself into an accident (whatever happened to intuitive design?), I accidentally started listening to the series in the reverse order. Fortuitously for me, these episodes were The Queen of Cuba and The Obscure Virus Club and they got me hooked real fast. Just look at the names. Don’t you wanna know what they’re about?

I am in a Catcher-in-The-Rye phase in my academic life (who isn’t?). Gladwell has a lot to say about this as well - Carlos Doesn’t Remember, Food Fight, My Little Hundred Million, Puzzle Rush, The Tortoise And The Hare. Although I don’t agree with him on everything, these episodes hit real close to home and have given me a lot to think about. Anybody who even casually thinks about academia should take a looksie. Then there are episodes that feel extremely pertinent in today’s political climate - Generous Orthodoxy, The Satire Paradox. I could go on but instead here’s a list of all the episodes I really liked.

• “The Lady Vanishes”
• “The Big Man Can’t Shoot”
• “Carlos Doesn’t Remember”
• “Food Fight”
• “My Little Hundred Million”
• “Blame Game”
• “Generous Orthodoxy”
• “The Satire Paradox”
• “A Good Walk Spoiled”
• “Miss Buchanan’s Period Of Adjustment”
• “The Basement Tapes”
• “Burden of Proof”
• “General Chapman’s Last Stand”
• “Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life”
• “The Imaginary Crimes of Margit Hamosh (Scientific Fraud Part 1)”
• “Strong Verbs, Short Sentences (Scientific Fraud Part 2)”
• “Puzzle Rush”
• “The Tortoise And The Hare”
• “Dr. Rock’s Taxonomy”
• “Descend into the Particular”
• “The Obscure Virus Club”
• “The Queen of Cuba”

Gladwell over-generalizes and over-simplifies. But that’s ok, so long as you don’t cite his podcast as a reference in your paper. He’s a storyteller telling his stories; sometimes that requires exaggeration and hyperbole. What I like most about him is his ability to find obscure stories about people whom we have never heard about. All the while that he is spinning his theories and constructing his hypotheticals, there are individuals involved, if only as observers, who make you care about the story. All his stories are personal to someone. All of his grand posturings about politics and society are presented from the perspective of individual beings. And so, even if you end up disagreeing with him, when all is said and done, you feel connected to this distant person whom you will never likely meet in real life.