This paradigm-shifting book argues that our culture has dramatically come to misunderstand and undervalue introverts, and gives introverts the tools to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths.
Author Cain’s Quiet message has profound implications for every interpersonal interaction and every decision involving people ... many engaging stories ... Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking is a book to be read deliberately, slowly, reflected upon, reread, meditated upon, quietly considered. Employing the attributes of introversion to read about the implications of introversion may yield far higher payoffs than the fast skimming, hurry up, soundbyte, quick-read style of the extrovert ... One measure of an extraordinary book is that it prompts the reader to reframe his or her view of the world, to recognize and reaffirm patterns, to consider implications that might not have previously been entertained. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking is this type of extraordinary book.
I finished Quiet a month ago and I can't get it out of my head. It is in many ways an important book—so persuasive and timely and heartfelt it should inevitably effect change in schools and offices ... her suggestions on how to redress the balance and make the world a bit more introvert-friendly are charmingly cautious ... But sometimes her brilliant ideas aren't written quite so brilliantly. Her book can be a bit of a slog, not always a page turner. I wish she'd spent a bit more time adventuring and a bit less time analysing and philosophising and citing vast armies of psychologists ... Her thesis—built on the assumption that almost everyone in the world can be squeezed into one of two boxes— may topple if it turns out that loads of us are essentially ambiverts. I suspect there are a lot of ambiverts out there.
Although the entire book is interesting, useful, and entertaining, Part Four presents a wealth of examples and ideas to apply the information from the rest of the book. In this final section, Cain grabs readers’ attention ... Quiet is well written and would likely appeal to a wide audience, including psychologists, educators, parents, business professionals, and lay people. Psychology instructors could easily incorporate the book into the personality section of the Introduction to Psychology course and could obviously weave it throughout an entire Personality Psychology course. But Quiet would also be useful in most other psychology courses ... Cain’s book will speak volumes to you.
