Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can't stop talking

This is one of the very few non-fiction books that the book club has read and we found it pretty hard going as it was quite boring. Many of the book club members did not manage to finish the book, and they felt that they would be unlikely to finish it after the meeting. They felt that the author went over and over the same point rather than giving more information on the different aspects of introverts and extroverts.

Having read this book we decided that everyone is on a scale from very introverted to very extroverted, with most people having some elements of both depending on the circumstances they find themselves in. We all then tried to decide where we would put ourselves on this scale, and where others might put us. Having said this we wondered if an introvert could or even should become more extrovert in order to get their ideas out in the open. We also talked about how the world we currently inhabit has a great emphasis on meetings and group working, and whether we feel that this excludes introverts. We wondered if we had ever ignored an introvert accidentally or whether we are used to being ignored by extroverts during meetings.

We didn't much like the sweeping statements, we would have preferred to have some more evidence, possibly more scientific in nature rather than all the little stories. We did like the comparisons between the Eastern and Western worlds and their definitions of politeness with regard introversion. Some more bits like that in the book would have been interesting.

We wondered if this is a book that only introverts would really enjoy as it's very focused on them, maybe extroverts would find it dull as it has little or nothing to do with them. Maybe a little more to do with extroverts might have attracted a wider audience, though to be fair the book is meant to be about introverts.

Overall we gave this book 5 out of 10.