Inviting author Susan Cain to read her own audiobook for Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole (7.5 hours) was an excellent choice. As a meditation on the importance of melancholy, the book requires just the right amount of energy—enthusiasm, even—to keep listeners forging ahead. With her easygoing, conversational pace and a voice full of curiosity and optimism, Cain convinces us that pushing past any ambivalence about sorrow will be rewarding.
The author narrates her personal anecdotes with fondness, bemusement and fascination. Her interviews feel like exciting scenes in a story, and she brings listeners right along on these encounters. It sounds as if she wrote the book to be read aloud.
Fans of lectures by thought leaders such as Brené Brown will enjoy Bittersweet immensely, finding much to ponder about the role of intense emotion in our search for human connection.
