Some Very Influential Books

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling. This was the book that first made me love reading.
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. This was my favorite book of the Harry Potter series, which is my favorite series. It is a great culmination of the story of the boy with whom I feel that I grew up.
3. 1984 by George Orwell. This book fascinated me with its views of a dystopia and how society could be today if America's democracy had not persevered through its rough patches.
4. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. This book made me really think about my subconscious in a whole new way. I really liked the way that Gladwell introduced his themes in such intriguing manners.
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. This was the first satirical book that I read and it was the most humorous book that I have ever read.
6. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. This book revolutionized the views that I had on authority. It helped me to find the balance between questioning all authority and obeying every decree from authority.
7. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. This is another fantasy book that I have re-read many times. I really enjoyed the way that Card makes even the most extraordinary aspects of his fiction believable and the way that his characters interact.
8. Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This book helped me realize the importance of books in attaining knowledge and how the freedom to read is a vital one.
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. This book had all of the aspects of adventure in it that made it interesting yet still was able to be serious enough for me to take its purpose seriously.
10. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. This was a very moving account of such a traumatic experience. I was particularly drawn to the way that Remarque employed Paul as a frank, reliable narrator who expressed his emotion extremely clearly.
11. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. This was another humorous book that I really enjoyed. Vonnegut's tongue-in-cheek style really appeals to me, and I felt that the content of this book was enjoyable in and of itself.
12. Mind Gym by Gary Mack. This book sparked my interest in psychology, specifically sports psychology.
13. Let the Trumpet Sound by Stephen B. Oates. I admire Martin Luther King Jr. for all that he accomplished in his short lifetime, so it was intriguing to go into the specifics of his life.
14. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. This was a really interesting book for me to read as a child because of its fantasy aspects, but when I became old enough to realize the religious allusions, I was able to analyze it in a whole new light.
15. Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama. As a supporter of President Obama, I felt it my duty to study his past, and this novel really gave me a new insight into where his political drive comes from.

Reading, Pondering, and Tipping (Points)

Over the summer, I read a number of books, including Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice from the required list. The rest of the books I read this summer are as follows:

• Now I Can Die in Peace by Bill Simmons
• Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama
• Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
• Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
• Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
  

Of these books, the one that I found most thought provoking was Gladwell's The Tipping Point. I had already read Blink, a similar work of his, so I was already familiar with his style of combining interesting anecdotes in order to make broad generalizations about seemingly basic aspects of life. In this case, Gladwell studied epidemics of all varieties and the proximate causes that allowed them to "tip" into prominence. Though I read most of the early stories within their own contexts, I was gradually able to connect the widely varied examples of everything from Sesame Street to syphilis to sneakers to smoking into a superb example of Gladwell's keys for what marks an epidemic as prime for tipping. I believe that it was the categorization of the types of people necessary for tipping an epidemic that made me view this book as a more cohesive work than I originally imagined it to be. After finding out about Mavens, the members of society who always know the best deals, Connectors, the ones with the best and most prolific connections, and Salesmen, the ones who ultimately sell the idea of the epidemic, I began to go back and see how each of these types of people was involved in all of Gladwell's examples.

Once I began to realize that virtually every epidemic originated from similar Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen, I began to look more closely for the three properties that Gladwell implied were necessary for a trend to reach a Tipping Point: Stickiness, or how likely its content was to be well-received, the Law of the Few, the focus on the power of the Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen who spread the epidemic along, and the Power of Context, meaning that the time as well as the content of an epidemic must be right in order for a Tipping Point to take place. I found these concepts to be most interesting because they can be applied to many parts of everyday life. Whenever an idea is spread, whether it is trying to get people to support a PCDS sports team, attend a college information session, or go to a new place for lunch, its success depends largely on word of mouth. However, if the idea is "sticky" enough, becomes know by the right people, and finds its own niche, it can reach an immense number of people in a very short time.

In reading this book, I realized that I could never again view even common phenomena such as popular restaurants or highly touted concerts without considering which Salesman finally got me to buy into the fad, which Mavens had originally discovered it, or why the Law of Context dictated that the time was right for just such a trend. After reading The Tipping Point, I can now better explain the power that word of mouth has in our increasingly well-connected world: a world where cell phones and the internet give everyone the chance to be a Connector and spread a "sticky" new idea. With this book, Malcolm Gladwell succeeded as a Salesman in getting me to buy into his book's idea. Or maybe, because of the Law of Context, I merely read this book at a time when I was particularly likely to be influenced by it. Either way, the epidemic of understanding Tipping Points has reached another willing participant (642).