I liked this a lot better than I thought I would. Self help type books have never been and probably never will be "my thing," but I thought that Brooks struck a pretty good balance between practical advice, examples, and data. That being said, I often found his tone kind of grating. It wasn't quite condescending but maybe over-confident on certain points. I'm not sure of the best way to describe it.

There were a lot of times where I felt like Brooks made certain actions sound way easier than they actually are. A lot of what he had to say about being empathetic by using your body language and facial expressions to convey your attentiveness felt so vague to me. He would often describe good, empathetic listeners as using their eyes to convey certain emotions, and I found myself just wondering... how? I worry about my own facial expressions a lot and often find that they don't convey what I want them to and don't know how to fix it. It always feels basically out of my control. I strongly preferred the more direct advice about how to ask better questions and think about people as both individuals and as a part of cultural groups, etc. Although, even that advice often came across as kind of.. unnatural? A lot of his examples sounded more like therapy-talk than actual casual conversations. He did address that though and I know that it's more about what you're asking than how.

He also contradicted himself a lot, which kind of makes sense because people do tend to be very contradictory, but at the same time I don't really think the enneagram is THAT different from MBTI types. He'll talk about not wanting to generalize about people and focus on who individual people are, but then he'll describe people as *being* specific traits on how you can *be* a specific kind of person. I'm not talking about when he talks about how people's backgrounds are important. That's different and I did like that chapter, but I think it's a little odd to say people are complicated and then say overall this person was blank or these people seem to be blank. I don't think I'm explaining it well, but I guess I don't see people as *being* anything and I didn't think he did either. I was more interested in the description of people like collections of stories or surfers going from one wave to the next, always changing and in that sense nobody is just a list of characteristics. It's about the story of their lives and how they came to be where they are now and what they will do later. Brooks seems to agree with all this, but he also goes against this in the way he describes people...

I do think that you can know other people to a certain extent and we should always be trying to know the people around us better because we will never know anybody (including ourselves) as well as we think we do. I think that sometimes Brooks is a little bit too confident about how well he (or others) know people. I think that knowing a person isn't a boolean value. It's a journey/story of its own. It's like... an action. To know a person is something ongoing and it definitely involves a lot of what he discusses, but I think Brooks could maybe think about the language he uses more carefully because sometimes he speaks about it as this finite thing even though I think he would agree that it's not.

I think this book is a kind of good entry point into thinking about these concepts on your own, but as a book I think it is also kind of weak. I think it could have been a bit shorter and more compact and I wonder how Brooks would write this book differently in a few years or what he would change about it now. ( )

Updated Dale Carnegie book: How to win friends and influence people; but that isn't quite right. David Brooks allows us to see his own growth over the years as well as incorporating stories from others about the individual grow all of us must make. Need to keep the book close for re-reading as needed.

I read Bobos in Paradise years back when it first came out. This is better; or rather, it starts out similarly and a little detachedly, but improved as it went - especially as it got personal.

Brooks is a good writer and an astute observer. Everyone sees the world through their specific lens. Brooks sees the world through affluent, well-heeled eyes--this is what he knows, what he lives, and the social circles through which he travels. That's an observation, not a faulting. Sometimes it shows up in his writing - like when he makes a point about how a plumber has to be super-careful to be taken as credible among an educated, academic crowd. That's likely true from the POV of an educated, academic, coastal-dwelling, Ivy-leagueish type of crowd. But the plumber? If he's mixing with that crowd at all, he's not looking to impress them and he doesn't care what they think of him--he knows plenty about life and people that many elitists don't and never will.

This book is really a gentle way to tell elitists to get out of their ivory towers, burst the bubbles they live in, or step out from behind their screen and mix it up with real people. That there's joy in understanding and seeing a person - not an identify, not a stereotype, not a political party, but the complex, nuanced, and wonder-full person right in front of them. In my experience, many don't want to, some don't know how to, and Brooks points out what they're missing. Also, he offers advice on ways to do it.

The chapter where Brooks' writing got personal is when he tells about his childhood, lifelong friend who succumbed to suicide. That got real and vulnerable and was Brooks at his best.

Recommended primarily to those who denigrate people who think differently, hold fewer degrees, or work 'dirty' jobs, as somehow less than and/or those who've ever used the phrase "flyover country" unironically. ( )

Summary: An exploration of how we might see people deeply and help them know that they are seen.

Most of us would want to be known as people who help people feel seen and to be deeply seen ourselves. But in our most honest moments, we have to admit we are not very good at this. We don’t listen well. We are far more capable of trying to impress others with our stories, our wit, our accomplishments. One of the most winsome aspects of this book is David Brooks candid admission that this characterizes his relationships far too often, even during his journey to explore this subject.

With his trademark clarity mixing research and personal narrative, Brooks describes the nature of good relationships, where people are seen by each other. He organizes this inquiry into three parts. The first of these is “I See You.” He speaks of how important and how lacking this is. He writes about the ways we often size up and diminish others. By contrast, he describes the qualities of an Illuminator, a model he will hold up and develop throughout the book: tender, receptive, actively curious, affectionate, generous, and holistic, seeing the whole person. Such people also are skilled in the practice of accompaniment, a relaxed awareness of the other as we share life with them. He discusses the marks of good conversations, where we loop back, actively listening, and avoid being the “topper.” He distinguishes between unhelpful questions where we stay superficial and the questions that take us deeper, that invite people to share something more of themselves.

The second part of the book goes deeper in seeing others in their struggles. One of the most powerful chapters in this section concerns how you serve someone in despair, and Brooks narrates his efforts to do this with a friend who eventually ended his life. He writes about what it means to empathize, describing it as mirroring, mentalizing, and caring. He speaks of how Illuminators are both aware of how they’ve been shaped by suffering and allow others who are suffering to process this question.

The final part of the book explores what it means to see people in their strengths. He summarizes personality with “the Big Five” ((he’s not much of a Myers-Briggs fan): extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness. He has a chapter on life tasks, reminding us that people are in a lifelong process of growth and that knowing someone involves discerning where in that process they are. He explores how we listen to and understand life stories and watch for how ancestors show up. He concludes with asking about the nature of wisdom and how it is acquired over a life, and how that changes our relationships.

In a time where we are so divided, where depression and anxiety are skyrocketing and our Surgeon General has named loneliness as a public health crisis, David Brooks has written a book that represents both a way to address many of these concerns and that appeals to “the better angels of our nature.” He writes as a fellow-learner on the journey, not as an authority. He speaks to one of the basics of life that often is overshadowed by the glitzy and the glamourous. He reminds us of the qualities of a good friend. He encourages me to want to be one. ( )

Brooks is an excellent popularizer of social psych and social wisdom. Not a lit review, but a survey of the ways we can know others and the ways we avoid knowing and being known. Richly elaborated with examples from friends, from his reading, and from his own life. A very thoughtful book that is offered as an antidote for our alienated and polarized age. ( )

The first two-thirds were a bit dull. Read like a smart person's "How to Win Friends" book, but with updated data, anecdotes, and references. However, I found the last third incredibly valuable and useful in his discussion of personality types. After dismissing Meyers-Briggs as fun but frivolous, he launches into a powerful explanation of how important it is that the world is made up of various personality types. But he also makes a beautiful and empathetic case for valuing each type of personality fully--with all its strengths and flaws. It's a clear and attainable approach to practicing real empathy. It's an idea that I'll be chewing on for quite some time. I highly recommend this book! ( )

I chose this book because I admire David Brooks more than just about any other political writer/commentator of our time. And that might be a bit unusual since he is considered a “conservative pundit.” At least he used to be considered that. I am probably on the opposite side of that political continuum. These days most people see Brooks as a middle of the road commentator more than a partisan one. That’s because he is so wise. This book ostensibly attempts to teach its reader to learn to be better at getting to know our fellow man and woman in ways most of us never really thought about. It is very prescriptive with a plethora of anecdotes and references. The notes section is excellent with easy hyper links back to the text they refer to in the book. All of that said, as a 73-year-old retiree, I almost wish Brooks had made this a 20-minute TED talk rather than a full blown book. Perhaps if I were still working and were 30 years younger, I would feel differently. I guess maybe I see myself as being beyond hope of long term improvement of my people skills. I could see Brooks’ book being used in social science class at the college level, and maybe it is. I think in that context it would be valuable. Anytime I see David Brooks’ name as a guest anywhere, I sit up and pay attention. That is just how important what he has to say is. David Brooks is something of a national treasure. ( )

Mr. Brooks has written a discussion of his approach to knowing about listening and talking to people. He has interest in the topic for many years both because of his own introversion and because of his career in journalism. The book is organized into general principles, communicating with people in various difficult and crisis situations, and a third part of assorted other ways to know people. The book is largely a self-help guide and contains a lot of advice that mostly seems good. At times I would agree with the author that it is wise.

What struck me negatively is what is negative in many self-help books; it is heavily referenced with ideas and quotes from famous psychologists and psychological studies. These ideas are often interesting, but many are non-scientific in that they cannot be tested, or, at least, have not been tested. So they amount to a number of ideas that Brooks has collected over the years because they please him or support his approach to things, but they often seem superficial or a small part of a much larger field of study. The studies I’m familiar with are not well-served this way, and their use reminded me of the Monty Python routine about the BBC show on how to play the flute. Blow in this end and move your fingers up and down on the stops.

There is discussion of personality types, but Freud is ignored (he is briefly mentioned as having been neurotic), perhaps because he dealt with psychopathology. Yet others with profoundly kooky ideas (e.g., Carl Jung) are quoted when needed. They are in the style of ... As a famous person once said, “Buy low and sell high”.

The author repeats the popular criticism of the Myers-Briggs personality classification as being scientifically unsound, but the alternative Five Factor Model is presented as a sound tested classification. These two systems have been shown to be highly correlated.

Finally, the author ends his book with a few pages of self-criticism, but he must realize that should he manage to become the Buddha, others would find him insufferable. ( )