Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know

Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Revisionist History and author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Outliers, offers a powerful examination of our interactions with strangers, and why they often go wrong--now with a new afterword by the author.

A Best Book of the Year: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Chicago Tribune, and Detroit Free Press

How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to one another that isn't true?

Talking to Strangers is a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news. In it, Malcolm Gladwell revisits the deceptions of Bernie Madoff, the suicide of Sylvia Plath, and the death of Sandra Bland--throwing our understanding of these and other stories into doubt.

Something is very wrong, Gladwell argues, with the tools and strategies we use to make sense of people we don't know, and the resulting conflict and misunderstanding have a profound effect on our lives and our world. Now, with Talking to Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell brings us a gripping guidebook for troubled times.

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Published Sep 28, 2021

416 pages

Average rating: 7.18

344 RATINGS

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What Bookclubbers are saying about this book

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Readers say *Talking to Strangers* offers intriguing ideas and thought-provoking case studies on how we misjudge people we don’t know, with many findi...

Wanderer

Feb 23, 2022

10/10 stars

Huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell and this might be my favorite book he has written to date. It really made me think differently.

Emma Thompson

Dec 10, 2020

8/10 stars

We managed to pull off a conversation about race, politics, religion, and walk out of the evening all still friends. Man! The world could take a lesson from us I think 😉. There was a strong consensus that Malcom Gladwell’s “Talking to Strangers” was a jam-packed, did-jointed collection filled to bursting with interesting ideas. For the large majority, the interesting outweighed the perceived lack of cohesion. For me, I think I might read or listen again. There were so many ideas presented and I am thinking that MAYBE the overarching thru-line might be mote evident in a second go around. I think everyone concurred that they would insist on their children listening/reading the chapter on alcohol. So if you didn’t read that part ... do!!

StephGold

Jan 06, 2026

10/10 stars

Wow, Gladwell wrote another well researched, thought provoking book. I really appreciated this one.

Zookreeper

May 02, 2025

5/10 stars

I found it interesting but dry.

Audrey Pelsor

Feb 18, 2025

6/10 stars

This book was not at all what I was expecting, but found it to be an interesting read with important information. I listened to the audiobook and recommend it. It was produced like a podcast with the author narrating, and clips from interviews, other audiobooks, etc. mixed in. It made for a unique "reading" experience.