Wednesday

September 2013 Book Choice

Quiet by Susan Cain is our later summer reading selection here are some of the reviews of this book.



"book just about introversion? At first blush, this may seem like a too narrow focus, but according to Cain, this trait is the “single most important aspect of personality.” She makes a good case by listing the various things in life that are linked to the dichotomy of Introversion/Extraversion – choice of friends, career and education, exercise, adultery, risk-taking, delayed gratification, to mention a few." 



The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking is about people who are quiet, their qualities, and how society underestimates these people. The book starts with a bang with the example of Rosa Parks who was an African-American woman with a quiet demeanor. The place is Alabama in the 1950s. She is in a segregated bus and when she refuses for not giving a seat to a white person, she is arrested. When she is on stage with Martin Luther King, the crowd becomes motivated to fight against the injustice.
The author, a self-confessed introvert, points out how society is biased against the introvert. From childhood they are taught that to be sociable is to be happy. Introversion is now "somewhere between a disappointment and pathology." The Power of Introverts is not about extrovert-bashing. Extroversion is good, but we have made it into an "oppressive standard" to which introverts must conform.

Seattle Book Review 

No comments:

Post a Comment