Malcolm Gladwell’s event is sold out. We will be selling standby tickets at the Benaroya Box Office on a first-come, first-serve basis starting at 6:00 PM tonight at a flat rate of $40, cash preferred.
Literary Arts Series subscribers and Create-Your-Own Series subscribers (except Student/U25 and complimentary subscriptions) will receive a copy of Gladwell’s new book, Talking to Strangers.
Malcolm Gladwell is a writer, public speaker, and podcast host whose work deals with the unexpected implications of research in the social sciences. Gladwell’s latest, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about People We Don’t Know (September 2019), is a challenging and controversial excursion through history, psychology, and scandals taken straight from the news.
Exploring questions like the difference between choking and panicking, why there are dozens of varieties of mustard, but only one variety of ketchup, and what hair dye tells us about the history of the 20th century, Gladwell is known for his eclectic pick of subjects and themes—to him, everything is potentially interesting, or will lead to something interesting, and this guides his choice of subjects to write about.
In the past two decades, Malcolm Gladwell has published five New York Times bestselling books that have radically changed how we understand our world and ourselves: The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference (2000); Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (2005); Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), where he popularized the 10,000 hour rule; What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures (2009), bringing together the best of his writing from The New Yorker, and, most recently: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (2013).
Gladwell is also the host of the podcast Revisionist History, “Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood,” which so far has aired four seasons. He is cofounder of the podcast company Pushkin Industries.
The success of his writing has given Gladwell an active second career as a public speaker at places like West Point and the National Institutes of Health, among many other institutions, and has landed him on the recommended reading list at many companies and business schools. Gladwell has been named one of the “100 most influential people” by TIME Magazine in 2005, and “a rock star, a spiritual leader, a stud” by Fast Company.
Gladwell was born in England and grew up in rural Canada. He studied history at the University of Toronto and wanted to go into advertising but couldn’t find a job and became a journalist instead, discovering that writing, which he had hitherto just thought was fun, could actually be made into a living. After a stint at The American Spectator he joined the Washington Post in 1987, where he covered business and science, before joining The New Yorker.
A former middle-distance runner in his high school years, he has retained his love of the sport and is an accomplished runner, having competed in races like the NYRR 5th Avenue Mile Race, where he placed 5th in his age category in 2014, running the mile under 5 minutes. He currently lives in New York City.
Edward Taylor, SAL’s Q&A moderator for Gladwell’s event, is vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs at the University of Washington where he oversees educational opportunities that advance and deepen the undergraduate experience. Also a professor in the UW’s College of Education, Dr. Taylor’s research, teaching and writing center on comparative education in the U.S. and South Africa, moral dimensions of education and integrative education, and leadership in education and social justice.
Active in the community, Taylor is a founding board member of Rainier Scholars; serves on the board of the Seattle Foundation; is a trustee of Gonzaga University; is on the Seattle mayor’s Education Summit Advisory Group; and also serves on the boards of College Spark Washington and the Rwanda Girls Initiative. Nationally, Taylor is a member of the faculty of the Academy for Contemplative and Ethical Leadership, which is part of the Mind and Life Institute. Internationally, he has worked with South African township schools and school leaders to help form a coalition of schools to serve children living in township communities.
