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Bittersweet

Bittersweet

How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole

Summary

AN OPRAH BOOK CLUB PICK

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
-- FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER QUIET: THE POWER OF INTROVERTS IN A WORLD THAT CAN'T STOP TALKING

"Amazing and profound . . . every single person should read it" Johann Hari

"Moving and eloquent" Sunday Times

Whether you long for the partner who broke up with you, or the one you dream of meeting; whether you hunger for the happy childhood you'll never have, or for the divine; whether you yearn for a lost person, an unborn child, the fountain of youth, or unconditional love: These are all manifestations of the same great ache...

In this inspiring and genre-bending work, Susan Cain - author of the international bestseller Quiet - shows us the power of a "bittersweet" outlook: the overlooked tendency to states of longing and poignancy, and a piercing joy at the beauty of the world.

Embracing the bittersweet means understanding that light and dark, birth and death - bitter and sweet - are forever paired, and that by recognising this we can find the true path to creativity and connection.

Bringing to light the ideas of artists, writers and thinkers from all over the world, and her own quest for answers over the course of a lifetime, Susan Cain fundamentally shifts our understanding of life by teaching us how to turn sorrow into an enriching superpower.

Reviews

  • I'll place Bittersweet in the hands of all my feely, achy, beautiful friends
    Glennon Doyle, author of #1 NYT bestseller Untamed

About the author

Susan Cain

Susan Cain is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking, which has sold over 2 million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. Since her 2012 TED talk was posted online it has been viewed over 40 million times. Her writing on introversion and shyness has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Oprah magazine and Psychology Today. Cain has spoken at the Royal Society of Arts, Microsoft and Google, and has appeared on the BBC, CBS and NPR. Her work has been featured on the cover of Time, in the Daily Mail, the FT, the Atlantic, GQ, Grazia, the New Yorker, Wired, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, USA Today, the Washington Post, CNN and Slate.com. She is an honours graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law School. She lives in the Hudson River Valley with her husband and two sons.
susancain.net
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