What would we do without The New York Times? How would we know about anything?

Sunday's Books section told us all about Malcolm Gladwell, a journalist who apparently writes for The New Yorker and has also authored two bestselling books. No way! How have we never heard of this guy before? Thanks, NYT!

Book Review editor Rachel Donadio shared with Times readers heretofore unknown information about Gladwell:

•He has big hair
•He wrote The Tipping Point in February 2000 and Blink in January 2005, and you've probably already read both of them (1.7 million and 1.3 million copies in print, respectively)
•He commands high speaking fees
•Publishers eager to release similar tomes, hence Freakonomics and The Wisdom of Crowds
•He's big enough to warrant a parody book called Blank
•He's a friendly Canadian liberal!

Take out all the references to Blink and this "profile" could have been written anytime in the past five years. Why now? No idea. But this is why we've heard the Times referred to as the "cultural obituary page."

What mysterious, rarely-written-about writer will The Times tackle next? Stephen King?

The Gladwell Effect [NYT]

Gladwell.com