I was reading the local paper a few weeks back and stumbled on the best sellers list for fiction and non-fiction. I find it useful to check up on what people are buying, as it’s not the sort of thing it’s easy to keep in touch with if you’re not wandering into book stores. Listening to the podcasts I tend to get, you’d think Clive James’ new translation of The Divine Comedy would be the talk of the town. But when you come to best sellers lists it tends to be the Dan Brown’s Infernos of this world that tend to dominate.

Anyway, it’s good to come across new things and I was interested to see a book called ‘Quiet’ at number 2 in the non-fiction list, sub-titled ‘The Power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’. Such being the ease of capitalism nowadays, it was on my Kindle within a couple of minutes.

The book has been a very insightful read, as much as you’d enjoy reading about the positive qualities of any particular group that you happen to belong to. Here’s a sample paragraph:

« Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions. »

I wouldn’t want to read my whole life through the lens of the book, but I’ve definitely found some of the content useful to understanding myself, especially how introverts draw so much inspiration and strength from the internal life, while extroverts need social interaction. it made me feel less like a social failure when I feel that I sometimes need reflective times alone and that it’s not always wrong to avoid the crowd. It made me appreciate why I need a few close friends rather than a wide number of contacts (FB friends don’t count). In the fight for equality, we get constantly told that we’re all the same, when in fact we actually have subtly different ways of functioning and need different stimuli.