Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain

I started reading this once, and ended up putting it down because I had other, more pressing books I needed to get to (which is an indicator of how I felt about the book in itself). Then my daughter read it and talked about how insightful it was about her husband and daughter. That was a new motivator to read it. I checked it out, read less than 30 pages and had to return it - it was all marked up, and the markings were very distracting. Finally, I got the audio book and listened to it. Well, most of it.

In some ways the audio version was better because it kept me forging ahead in the book. In other ways it was not (like the times I fell asleep listening to it).

This all makes it sound like I didn't like the book, which is not true. I did like it. I felt it had good information. And, I'm an introvert, so it was especially good information for me. But still...

Cain is a clever writer. This book is so pro-introversion that it's almost ridiculous. Yet she is sly in her lack of "respect" for extroverts. At the end of the book (or as close to the end as I got), you realize the only positive example of an extrovert in her book is Martin Luther King. I personally feel like it takes all kinds to make the world go around. We need both introverts and extroverts to balance our world.

If you are a strong introvert who has a hard time seeing any place for yourself in the world around you, this book is for you. Or if you have family members who are strong introverts, you can better understand them and help them adjust to the world around them by reading this book.

As I read the book, I kept thinking "I think I'm an introvert." I wanted to take a Myers Briggs test, then remembered that I took one about 20 years ago. I was an INSJ (the I means Introvert). I wondered if I would score much differently now. Rather than take the test again, I looked up the personality traits of an INSJ. It's me on the nose. I don't think I need to take the test again.