Susan Cain – författare

Av alla människor i vår omgivning är en tredjedel introverta. De lyssnar hellre än pratar, läser hellre än festar, skapar hellre en marknadsför sig.

Ofta är det ett drag som inte belönas. Men i sin numera klassiska bok berättar Susan Cain varför de tysta tvärtom är helt avgörande för våra samhällen. Med nedslag i såväl historien som forskningen och samtida livsöden visar hon vari styrkan hos de introverta ligger, och hur mycket vi förlorar på att underskatta dem.

Tyst har hyllats som en genuin och banbrytande bok med kraft nog att förändra omgivningens sätt att se på de introverta, och de introvertas sätt att se på sig själva.

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Det är förförisk läsning ... med understrykningspenna i hand markerar jag den ena meningen efter den andra, hojtar påståenden till min man, typsorterar bekanta i allmänhet och mig själv i synnerhet.Anna Hellsten, Sydsvenskan

Ett försvarstal för dig som inte minglar med lätthet. Och vad vore världen utan Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton och alla andra introverta, men ack så briljanta, människor?Elsa Westerstad, Fokus

En röst för de tysta. Cain vänder upp och ner på vedertagna värderingar och ger oss en värdefull tankeställare.Mats Ternblad, Expressen

Tyst är en guldgruva av information och Cain har gjort en banbrytande insats för att bryta introversionens stigma.Johan Norberg, Svenska Dagbladet

För alla oss som under uppväxten aldrig förmådde vara utåtriktade, som aldrig kunnat bjuda på oss själva, så är den nya boken Tyst av Susan Cain en revansch och en uppenbarelse. Jan Gradvall

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Susan Cain (f. 1968) har arbetat som affärsjurist och undervisat i förhandlingsteknik vid storföretag, advokatbyråer och universitet. Hon är utbildad vid Princeton University och Harvard Law School. Debuten Tyst blev en internationell succé. År 2022 gav hon ut boken Bitterljuv.

With her mega-bestseller 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 why we experience sorrow and longing, and the surprising lessons these states of mind teach us about creativity, compassion, leadership, spirituality, mortality and love. Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy when beholding beauty. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. A song in a minor key, an elegiac poem, or even a touching television commercial all can bring us to this sublime, even holy, state of mind—and, ultimately, to greater kinship with our fellow humans. But bittersweetness is not, as we tend to think, just a momentary feeling or event. It’s also a way of being, a storied heritage. Our artistic and spiritual traditions—amplified by recent scientific and management research—teach us its power. Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own sorrows and longings, she says, we can end up inflicting them on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward each other. And we can learn to transform our own pain into creativity, transcendence, and connection. At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled quiet, it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society--from van Gogh's sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer. Passionately argued, impressively researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet shows how dramatically we undervalue introverts, and how much we lose in doing so. Taking the reader on a journey from Dale Carnegie's birthplace to Harvard Business School, from a Tony Robbins seminar to an evangelical megachurch, Susan Cain charts the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in the twentieth century and explores its far-reaching effects. She talks to Asian-American students who feel alienated from the brash, backslapping atmosphere of American schools. She questions the dominant values of American business culture, where forced collaboration can stand in the way of innovation, and where the leadership potential of introverts is often overlooked. And she draws on cutting-edge research in psychology and neuroscience to reveal the surprising differences between extroverts and introverts. Perhaps most inspiring, she introduces us to successful introverts--from a witty, high-octane public speaker who recharges in solitude after his talks, to a record-breaking salesman who quietly taps into the power of questions. Finally, she offers invaluable advice on everything from how to better negotiate differences in introvert-extrovert relationships to how to empower an introverted child to when it makes sense to be a pretend extrovert. This extraordinary book has the power to permanently change how we see introverts and, equally important, how introverts see themselves.