Book #56 |
Book: Bittersweet | Author: Susan Cain | |
| Source: Library loan Format: Audiobook |
Pages: 331 | Duration: 07/18/25 – 07/18/25 (1 day) | |
| Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Genres: nonfiction, psychology, self help, mental health, personal development, philosophy | ||
| 📕10-word summary: A potential reframing, or paradigm shift, about sorrow and longing. 🖌6-word review: Possible antidote to exorbitant existential angst. |
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| 💭Favorite quote: “You sing happy birthday in C major. You compose a funeral march in C# minor.” | |||
| 🎓A new-to-me word: edenic | |||
| Description:* Loss and impermanence are inescapable, part of the warp and weft of our lives. They are essential to love, to growth, and to art. And yet, too often, we don’t acknowledge loss in the broadest sense, let alone honour the experience of it. We see it as a bad thing, rather than understanding that using our suffering will lead to true compassion. Illuminating, thoughtful, and deeply necessary, Susan Cain’s new book will help us to name and value the experience of loss, pointing the way toward ways of being and rituals that help us to accept it rather than bury it.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I’m not a fan of self-help books — and with regards to this one in particular, I don’t have any sorrow or longing that I need to deal with — so if it hadn’t been a Mostly Social Book Club book, I would have abandoned this one. As an atheist, the (too) many allusions, references, and connections to (various) religions in it were a huge turn-off, and I’m not very open to what some call complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), so all that talk (and there was plenty of it) was also uninteresting to me. With all that said, I’m open to the possibility that someone who is struggling with sorrow and longing might find this book interesting and helpful. It just wasn’t my cup of tea for the many reasons I’ve mentioned, and I’d be unlikely to recommend it without a number of caveats. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.