What the Dog Saw is an accumulation of different articles that
Gladwell has written for the magazine The New Yorker, split in to
three categories: Obsessives, Pioneers, and Other Varieties of
Minor Genius, Theories, Predictions, and Diagnoses, and finally
Personality, Character, and Intelligence. Most of the articles are
written pre-2005 which dates some of them, though this doesn't
negatively impact the book. Gladwell is a creative thinker and I
started this book with high expectations having really enjoyed his
other works. Though you'd think that reading small articles would
make the book easier to read, I actually found it harder because
every 15 pages or so I'd have to start fresh with a new
story.
Of the three sections, I enjoyed Theories, Predictions, and
Diagnoses the best because it had the most food for thought. For
example, why should the Enron guys be put in jail when they clearly
made everything public and didn't hide what they were doing with
the company vs. Nixon who hid everything. Both lied, cheated, and
stole so what differentiates them? I liked the Obsessives,
Pioneers, and other Varieties of Minor Genius the least. There was
one article I couldn't even get through.
While I did enjoy this book, I would recommend Gladwell's others
over this.