Quiet, Susan Cain

The subtitle of this book is a pretty decent precis of the entire thing: "The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking."

I was very happy about the time and effort spent finding and citing all of the research challenging current extrovert and group-mind tendencies in American corporate and intelligence cultures: brainstorming doesn't work, the loudest (or most persuasive) talker isn't the smartest person in the room, people don't actually work better in "teams" or in "open plan" desk arrangements. 

In addition, I appreciated the time spent examining the overlap between introverts and "highly sensitive" people (about 70% of introverts are also more sensitive to their surroundings, and I don't mean in a woo sense of auras or an emotional sense of bursting into tears).   Falling neatly into both categories, I found the extra information quite helpful.

Lastly, I was swept away by all of the studies and research work which is being completely ignored by the mainstream in their quest to keep from insulting anyone, or to forgo pointing out differences between people.  I truly wish that we had a way to cover differences without immediately assigning worth to those differences.  Our solution now, 'pretend there aren't any until we have to confront it, and then flip out' isn't working so well.

I read this in segments, and it seemed repetitive in form even then - I would not recommend trying to get through in one big push - it seems to work better in smaller quantities spaced out over some time.

Very good, very approachable, written in friendly conversational interview style, and full of research and intriguing studies about the one-third to one-half of us who aren't outgoing go-getters.