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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

In her inspiring new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet describes her powerful quest to understand how love, loss and sorrow make us whole – revealing the power of a bittersweet outlook on life.

Bittersweetness is a tendency towards states of longing, poignancy and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.

If you seek out beauty in your everyday life . . .
If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . .
If you react intensely to music, art and nature . . .

Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling
and memoir to explore how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity and connection.

Cain shows movingly how a bittersweet state of mind – though we’ve been blind to its value – is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. It can change the way we live, the way we work and the way we love. If we realize that all humans know – or will know – loss and suffering, we can turn towards one another.

At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

Publisher Review

A decade ago, I found myself inside Quiet. With Bittersweet, Susan Cain has described and validated my existence once again! Bittersweet reaffirmed that my constant, achy awareness of life's brutiful is a way of life shared across the ages with artists, healers and anyone who pays deep attention. I'll place Bittersweet in the hands of all my feely, achy, beautiful friends -- Glennon Doyle, author of #1 NYT bestseller Untamed Susan Cain's Bittersweet grabs you by the heart and doesn't let go. I've thought about the depth and beauty in Susan's research and storytelling every day since I finished the book. I will always be grateful for how much Quiet and Bittersweet have helped me understand myself and how I engage with the world -- Brene Brown, author of the NYT bestseller Atlas of the Heart This is the rare book that doesn't just open your eyes - it touches your heart and sings to your soul. Susan Cain gave a voice to introverts, and now she masterfully paints our heaviest emotions in a light that's long overdue. Bittersweet is the perfect cure for toxic positivity and a sparkling ode to the beauty of the human condition -- Adam Grant, #1 NYT bestselling author of Think Again Susan Cain does it again! As the author of the worldwide phenomenon Quiet she changed how the world sees introverts. Now she has written a book that will change how the world sees sorrow and longing. This book is an absolute triumph: it's for anyone who has ever really lived, loved, or lost -- Greg McKeown, author of NYT bestsellers Effortless and Essentialism An amazing and profound book about some of the most important feelings in human life - ones that our culture averts its gaze from, but now, thanks to Susan Cain, we can think about, and experience, with extraordinary clarity. Every single person should read it -- Johann Hari, bestselling author of Stolen Focus Nourishing and wise, Bittersweet fills a gap in our culture that many of us have felt keenly: the need for sadness, poignancy and yearning as part of the full spectrum of human emotion. Just like Quiet, I felt like an aspect of myself was honoured in these pages -- Katherine May, author of Wintering In Bittersweet, Susan Cain speaks to our souls, to our inner longing for connection and meaning. Her writing is a poignant and profound reminder that it is shadow that gives depth to our vision and transience that makes joy so sweet. Bittersweet is a homecoming for all of us who weep when our deepest sense of wonder is stirred -- Kathryn Mannix, author of Listen and With the End in Mind In a profound new book set to be as influential as Quiet, Cain - who is obsessed with Leonard Cohen's music - argues that recognising the value of the "bittersweet" - that is, learning to weather times of pain and loss - is powerful and vital * The Bookseller * Susan Cain finds what is undervalued, quiet, and precious. In Bittersweet she takes you to a room in your own heart full of treasures that you had forgotten about. This is a book to read, feel, and savour -- Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU and author of The Righteous Mind Bittersweet is astonishing -- one of the most gracefully written, palpably human books I've read in years. Its powerful case will reshape how you think about yourself and those you love. Its sheer beauty will linger in your heart long after you turn the final page -- Daniel H Pink, #1 NYT bestselling author of WHEN, DRIVE and A WHOLE NEW MIND An eye-opening take on the underestimated virtues of melancholy . . . this ambitious work impresses in its dexterous integration of disparate thought traditions into a cohesive, moving, and insightful whole. Like a more intuitive Malcolm Gladwell, Cain delivers a deeply felt study of the profound uses of sorrow and melancholy, a perfect manual for coping with tough times * Publishers Weekly * With a mix of research and memoir, Cain uncovers the value of sorrow as an essential component of creativity, empathy and wonder. Artistic, brooding types everywhere will feel seen by Cain's thoughtful analysis, and appreciated for their superpower of transforming pain into art and connection * BookPage * By the author of the 2012 phenom Quiet, this timely and timeless exploration of the "melancholic direction" of how "the tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor" is both an antidote for our uncertain times and a toolbox for using angst and yearning as a means of transforming pain into "creativity, transcendence, and love" -- Oprah Daily: The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2022 I can't get Quiet out of my head. It is an important book - so persuasive and timely and heartfelt it should inevitably effect change in schools and offices -- Jon Ronson on 'Quiet'