I'll read a new book every month.

I wrote it on the Internet, so it must be true. My goal has nothing to do with the new year, but I remain resolute; I haven't read more than a few magazines and trashy novels since returning from Ireland, and my ability to read and write coherently has suffered immeasurably in the interim. Time to grow up.

This month I'm gingerly slipping my puerile pinky toe into frigid waters with Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw, the latest book from an author whose previous work (including his New Yorker features and the behavioral science Benedict Arnold Blink) I enjoyed.

Three chapters in and already it's clear this is not a typical Gladwell book; unlike his previous works (Blink, Outliers and The Tipping Point) there appears to be no guiding hypothesis for the work. The first third (which I'm still ploughing through) is a series of profiles highlighting people Gladwell believes to be interesting, and while I tend to agree (portraying financial traders as a group of epistemological philosophers more concerned with mythos than math turned a dry chapter into my favorite so far,) I can't help but feel this book is robbed of impact without the limits of an argument.

Since Gladwell is (so far) only reprinting some of his favorite New Yorker features without a powerful guiding argument, I can't help but feel a bit cheated whenever I idly turn a page and stumble upon a fresh chapter haphazardly inserted with absolutely no connecting argument or even explanation. I wander from the life story of Ron Popeil, plasticware pitchman extraordinaire to a brief overview of the people fighting to keep ketchup classy (and steal shelf space from Heinz.) What the Dog Saw is interesting, but it could be so much more than just the anthology of an auteur.

I expect the book to switch up narrative strategy twice more before I'm through, so we'll see what Gladwell does to keep me interested. I secretly hope the final profile is autobiographical (I could use the hairstyling help.)