Just Finished: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain was my pick for the Science and Natural History category of the Mixing It Up challenge.  As an introvert extroardinaire (I'm an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs personality scale), I'm always drawn to books and articles about my kind.  Our culture considers introversion virtually a character defect, and it's nice to be reminded from time to time that one's personality type is just that--a position on a spectrum rather than a pathology.  Moreover, that "our" end of the spectrum is just as important and valuable to society as the other.

From Amazon:  "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."