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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.