Agincourt is a stunning battle in the Earth's history of battles.
I cannot even explain it properly.

Each time I come across the battle, read something about the battle, happen upon a television show about the battle, I am stunned and shake my head.
Agincourt is undefinable except for what it is.
Agincourt.

Bernard Cornwell is a fantastic writer.
He wraps this battle into a campaign of Henry V into France in his quest to then capture the French throne.

Nick Hook is an outlaw English archer in the service of Henry.
Hook finds begins to find himself in the middle of the slogging English campaign through France.
Hook finds himself in the midst of long, drawn out marches, arduous sieges, deplorable troop conditions, vicious battles, bloody and muddy, yelling skirmishes.

Yet the real star of the book is Cornwell who weaves it all together in vivid place and time as the English army moves forward into France and keeps you, the reader, on horseback next to young Hook.

This is a book to read - and not put down.
The book will make you hold your breath, gasp at the brutality of the skirmishes and shake your head that men really, actually and truly lived and died through all of that.

The book will make you always remember the English longbow.
And never forget Agincourt.

I've read Malcolm Gladwell's books, Blink and Outliers.

Those books were completely engaging, interesting and compelling to the point that I could not put them down.

Those books are not Grisham yarns or Clancy tales of page-turning fiction, but are books of journalistic exploration, discovery, understanding and what-is-learned-next non-fiction.

I have never read non-fiction books that are as enthralling as Gladwell's work.

Gladwell has mastered his prose style. 
Gladwell has also mastered his storytelling craft.
He is a complete artist in every sense.
He weaves these true life accounts and histories wonderfully and tacitly, moving you through the lives of these people and moving you through these unremarkable now remarkable events.

What The Dog Saw is a collection of Mr. Gladwell's work from his efforts for The New Yorker.
Each chapter is an essay discovered and written for the magazine. This book provides numerous subjects as opposed to one main, overriding subject pursued in his other books.

These essays and articles are written extremely well and are very interesting. As always, the people, places, facts, misconceptions, truths and far-reaching results of all of these ingredients are quite incredible. "Ronco", women's hair coloring and the Pill all provide deep subject matter for Mr. Gladwell to delve into.

But - for me, this book did not keep my interest.

After thinking it over, I think I would enjoy reading Mr. Gladwell researching, discovering and crafting these subjects into one of his full-length works. He is so good at all of the above ingredients, it's a let down to only get small pieces explored and end up with small pieces written. I just wanted Mr. Gladwell to go all out on these subjects - writing for a magazine format does not allow that.

That may be where the rub is for me.

This is not a Malcolm Gladwell book.
This is a great collection of Mr. Gladwell's New Yorker articles.

Malcom Gladwell's homepage.