Collects the author's best ""New Yorker"" pieces, including essays on such topics as why there are so many kinds of mustard but only one type of ketchup, a surprising assessment of what makes a safer car, and an examination of a machine built to predict hit movies.

Previously published in the New Yorker.

Pt. 1: Obsessives, pioneers, and other varieties of minor genius -- The pitchman : Ron Popeil and the conquest of the American kitchen -- The ketchup conundrum : mustard now comes in dozens of different varieties--why has ketchup stayed the same? -- Blowing up : how Nassim Taleb turned the inevitability of disaster into an investment strategy. -- True colors : hair dye and the hidden history of postwar America -- John Rock's error : what the inventor of the birth control pill didn't know about women's health -- What the dog saw : Cesar Millan and the movements of mastery -- Pt. 2: Theories, predictions and diagnoses. Open secrets : Enron, intelligence and the perils of too much information -- Million dollar Murray : why problems like homelessness may be easier to solve than to manage -- The picture problem : mammography, air power, and the limits of looking -- Something borrowed : should a charge of plagiarism ruin your life? -- Connecting the dots : the paradoxes of intelligence reform -- The art of failure : why some people choke and others panic -- Blowup : who can be blamed for a disaster like the Challenger explosion? No one, and we'd better get used to it -- Pt. 3: Personality, character and intelligence. Late bloomers : why do we equate genius with precocity? -- Most likely to succeed : how do we hire when we can't tell who's right for the job? -- Dangerous minds : criminal profiling made easy -- The talent myth : are smart people overrated? -- The New-Boy Network : what do job interviews really tell us? -- Troublemakers : what pit bulls can teach us about crime.