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  • How to Know a Person

  • The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
  • By: David Brooks
  • Narrated by: David Brooks
  • Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (48 ratings)
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How to Know a Person

By: David Brooks
Narrated by: David Brooks
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives - from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be able to make them feel recognized and valued. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more I come to the certainty that there is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community or nation: the ability to see each other, to know other people, to make them feel valued, heard and understood."

And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us to do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us. If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person's story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and from the worlds of theatre, history, and education, to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps listeners become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps listeners find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is a profoundly creative act: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, seeking to understand and yearning to be understood.

©2023 David Brooks (P)2023 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about How to Know a Person

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Rich with concise knowledge & insights

I need to listen to this again, and again - as it spoke to me on so many levels and I want to absorb more of the richness this well researched book so articulately delivers.
Thank you for your assimilation and sharing of knowledge.
It’s helped me comprehend a deep shadow in my life and shined various lights in that darkness.

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Thought provoking introspection.

I will need to listen to this book again and again as I’m sure I shall illuminate more and more of myself each time.

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A beautiful pleading for the human conection

It is a very good book with deep insights into human life and human connection in this era of people growing apart and living lonely or through technology. The only thing I didn't like was the author's style of reading. Quite monotonous and tiring.

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Just wonderful

I couldn't fault it. Some great advice and a superb presentation. Well done, David, you really covered this subject well.

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Brooks brings a very uplifting curiosity and enthusiasm to relating and understanding people

I feel like I want to read it over after listening, there's so much in it to be mulled over and considered. A useful, amusing, emotive and heart centered book.

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‘My access to me’

David Brooks is the North Star in the firmament of humanity.
This book will speak to your essence and nurture your individual greatness.
Narrated exquisitely by the author.

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Fascinating deep-dive into how to relate deeply and compassionately with others. A tour de force.

Beautifully narrating through vivid stories and examples, Brooks imparts wisdom by means of nectar. He is a great illuminator.

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Insights about research

Great listening. Almost feels like a podcast. A lot of insightful information and candid stories.

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One of the best books I’ve ever spent time with

I spent more time rewinding and listening to sections again of this book than any of the books I have in my library here on Audible since I joined in 2005.

Here, David offers a line to “look at people, not as problems to be solved but as mysteries to be unravelled”, and that line will inform the rest of my life. 🙏

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Insightful and thought provoking

It made me reflect on and think deeply about my relationships and social interactions. It was helpful in a practical sense to see how I might improve my interactions and understand others better. It also made me understand better why I get irritated with some relationships and whether I’m prepared to invest in them, or not! I’ve referred to and recommended this book a lot.

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