Writing

Malcolm Gladwell’s Bestselling Bibliography

Written by MasterClass

Last updated: Jun 7, 2021 • 3 min read

Author, journalist, and podcaster Malcolm Gladwell has written five nonfiction New York Times bestsellers, inspiring his readers to think differently about human sociological and psychological phenomena like decision-making, perception, and unconscious bias.

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A Brief Introduction to Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell is a bestselling Canadian author and journalist known for his public speaking, influential books, and thoughtful articles about popular culture and the social sciences. Born in England and raised in Ontario, Canada, Malcolm graduated with a bachelor's degree in History from Trinity College at the University of Toronto in 1984. He worked at the Washington Post before becoming a staff writer at The New Yorker, where he has worked since 1996.

Malcolm has written six nonfiction books on sociology, psychology, social psychology including The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005). The Tipping Point was named one of the best books of the decade by the A.V. Club and by The Guardian.

In 2001, Malcolm won the National Magazine Award for profiles for “The Pitchman,” his New Yorker piece about American inventor Ron Popeil. In 2005, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Gladwell is the co-founder of podcast and audiobook production company Pushkin Industries and hosts the popular podcast Revisionist History.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Bibliography

Here are Malcolm Gladwell’s six published works.

  1. 1. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (2000): In The Tipping Point, Malcolm examines how fads, trends, behaviors, and messages spread through society. The book spent 334 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, and The Guardian ranked it 94 out of 100 of the best books of the twenty-first century.
  2. 2. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005): In Malcolm’s second bestseller, he explores research on human perception and unconsciousness to examine how we make decisions, reach conclusions, and pass judgments. In addition to becoming another New York Times Best Seller, Blink—along with his first book The Tipping Point, earned Malcolm a place in Time’s 2005 “Most Influential People” list.
  3. 3. Outliers: The Story of Success (2008): In Malcolm's third nonfiction book, he examines the stories of highly successful people, from Bill Gates to The Beatles. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Sellers list, where it remained for 11 consecutive weeks.
  4. 4. What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009): What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures is a collection of Malcolm’s New Yorker articles covering a number of sociological and cultural topics, from criminal profiling to the fall of major companies. The book hit number three on The New York Times Best Sellers list, where it spent a total of 16 weeks.
  5. 5. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2015): In this book, Malcolm tells the stories of famous underdogs and the probability of improbable successes, grounding the story in the biblical tale of David and Goliath. The book peaked at number four on The New York Times Best Sellers list.
  6. 6. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know (2019): Talking to Strangers was named best book of the year by The Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg, and became a number one bestseller on audiobook. In the book, Malcolm unpacks the various misconceptions and assumptions that we make about other people. Gladwell grounds his theories in many real-life stories—like the Bernie Madoff scandal, the case of Sandra Bland, the death of Sylvia Plath.

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