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.