The Content of a Review

The first thing that jumped out at me during both “How Smart Are Computers Really?” And “Helena Rubinstein vs. L’Oreal” was the way in which Gladwell and Gopnik organized their reviews around a central theme. The beginning of both reviews read more like a story than a cut-and-dry review of a book. The descriptions are elaborate, the language is rich, and it is not until the reader is in to the meat of the story that they realize the authors are, in fact, highlighting aspects of different books.

            In Gladwell’s piece, it is interesting how he takes two notorious names in the beauty industry and interweaves them with other individuals in history to their personalities, businesses, and entrepreneurial spirit. He begins with the book review, and then the piece develops into a story. What begins as a review of Ruth Brandon’s Ugly Beauty invariably turns into an expose of business owners who have toed the line of moral obligation during political turmoil. I enjoyed how the article doubled as a review of the content of Brandon’s book and a piece of narrative journalism on entrepreneurs of the past.

            Gopnik, however, seems to begin by exploring a topic and uses reviews of books written on the topic to support and add to his claims. He uses the different books to explore different aspects of his overall theme of artificial intelligence; again, making it much more journalistic than a simple book review. Both articles share qualities that highlight the depth of the content the authors explored and not simply accounting for “The new book  _____ by ______ is about” like other publications’ reviews. 

Computer vs. Man

I loved the critique of the three books by Gopnik on the topic of computer intelligence more so than the review by Gladwell. The style they took was different also with one taking only one book and detailing it out while the other, Gopnik, manages to talk about severals books on the same topic.

I would be more inclined to read the computer intelligence books probably. It is fascinating to me to think about how far computers have come in just the last two decades. They are light-years more advanced than they were in the beginning of the 1990s. This is great, yet also kind of scary. I liked when he was talking about the computer Watson but tend to agree that these are only programs drawing from coding and situations that have already been loaded by us....humans. I'm not too worried about artificial intelligence, yet. Time will tell over the next 20 years as to what will happen.

The Color of Money was interesting also just learning about the upstart careers of two people from the same time period that started with nothing. I liked the details and especially the stories about Madame Rubinstein in her everyday life. The story about the thieves was amusing. That mindset has seemed to changed over the last century in my opinion. The one where you start a business on innovation and provide useful change to society. Now it seems to be what can I do get rich instead of move society forward while getting paid in the process.

Man vs. (Wo)Man versus Man vs. Computer

While both book reviews; Helena Rubinstein vs. L'Oreal and How smart are computers really?, were interesting reads, I think I would be more inclined to read Ugly Beauty than any of the three books mentioned by Gopnik. From the beginning of the computer age there has been a fascination (and fear) in pop culture with the concept of artificial intelligence and the eventuality of man battling a superior machine. From the artificially intelligent HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Terminator the message is: Humans beware! eventually the machines will take over.

While the fact that a computer can win at Jeopardy is interesting, it's not nearly as fascinating as why Eugene Schuellar collaborated with the Nazis or why Helena Rubinstein would defy gun-toting thieves in her New York apartment at the age of ninety-one. What motivates humans is infinitely more interesting than whether or not a computer can carry on a conversation. After all, would not conversing with a computer be like talking to an encyclopedia? A lot of knowledge but no insight. And this is the essence of good narrative journalism. It goes beyond the facts and delves into the "why". Which to me makes for a much more interesting read. Real people.

Hattiesburg Latino Population Highlight

As I was working as statistician (secretary) today, I stumbled across the article in the Hattiesburg American about their Latino community. I thought it was really interesting, and might help us to look at this angle as well. Here is the link: http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/article/20110313/NEWS01/103130327/1046/Northrop-Grumman-4Q-profit-falls-9-percent/Fast-growing-population-Hispanic-leaders-seek-more-acceptance?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Book reviews: Gopnik and Gladwell

For this week, we were assigned to read two book review articles from The New Yorker, "Get Smart” by Adam Gopnik and "The Color of Money" by Malcolm Gladwell. Adam Gopnik's article focused on the topic of artificial intelligence and several books that addressed that topic. Malcolm Gladwell’s piece was a review of one book about two cosmetics moguls.

Gopnik’s article was interesting to me because I had never read a book review written in that way. He centered his piece around one idea and then reviewed three different books that had similar topics. I enjoyed reading this article because he successfully explained the topic of artificial intelligence while weaving in reviews of multiple books. I did not feel like he gave me too much information on any one book. I think his way of reviewing books leaves the reader wanting more and also makes the reader curious about the books in his article.

Gladwell used a more straightforward approach in writing his book review. He focused on one book and gave a thorough description and analysis of it. I recognized his style and felt comfortable reading his article. Yet although his review was informative and easy to read, I think he gave away too much information. By the end of his piece, I felt like I had already read the whole book. Where Gopnik’s review left me wondering, Gladwell’s gave me everything. I think that Gladwell accomplished that task of providing a complete book review, but he should have left out a bit of the detail so that the reader did not get the whole story.

Save the Summary

To me, the purpose of a book review, no mater where it is published, is to get an audience interested in the subject that book pertains to so that the audience will not only read the book being profiled, but other books on the same subject. Going from this assumption, Adam Gopnik's "Get Smart" review succeeds in this purpose more so than Malcolm Gladwell's "The Color of Money."

Gopnik spends most of his time in the article explaining artificial intelligence, rather than on the two books he is reviewing on the subject. He incorporates popular culture references such as Watson on Jeopardy and online poker games so that the audience does not feel alienated from this potentially dense subject matter. Once his article is done, I felt like Gopnik had delivered a great teaser for this subject, providing some of the highlights of the books without giving the whole point away. He weaves together the information in a way that is not only understandable and interesting, but makes for great trivia fodder for talking with friends.

On the other hand, Gladwell provides a well-written summary and conceptualization of the book "Ugly Beauty" but he really doesn't give the reader a reason to go pick up the book. Gladwell gives away the whole story, explains the juxtaposition of the two major characters and explains why the author does this, leaving the reader with nothing to discover for themselves. It doesn't make for a bad review, indeed the writing is good and the book sounds very interesting, but now I'll never have to read "Ugly Beauty," since Malcolm Gladwell has done it for me.

Hard-Boiled Detective Story

Tampa Confidential reminds me of noir detective fiction of the 40's and 50's which is appropriate for the time period of the story. It is especially effective how the story begins, where the time frame of the narrative is not readily apparent. It could be a contemporary story, but there are clues that its from a different era. The fact that Ford is a "veteran of two wars" forces the reader to start questioning when this is occurring. Once he slips on his "well-worn fedora" it becomes clear that this story reaches back into time.

As is the case in most good narrative writing, the attention to detail really transports the reader to a different time and place. For readers who live in present-day Tampa it does a good job of visually painting a picture of the landscape of the city that existed more than forty years ago.

The story is almost a police procedural piece. It gives the reader a glimpse of how cases were investigated in an era before the use of scientific methods of crime scene investigation. Tampa Confidential draws the reader into the old gumshoe method of detection. And like much of noir fiction, it ends with a good deal of ambiguity and loose ends that aren't neatly tied up.