Bittersweet: How Sorrow Is a Hidden Source of Creativity, Beauty, & Love

Sadness is your superpower. The author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores the power of the bittersweet personality, revealing a misunderstood side of mental health and creativity while offering a roadmap to facing grief in order to live life to the fullest.

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of long­ing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute aware­ness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. 

If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music . . . If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day . . . If you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty . . .Then you probably identify with the bitter­sweet state of mind.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an un­tapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she em­ploys the same mix of research, storytelling, and memoir to explore why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, con­nection, and transcendence.

Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain, whether from a death or breakup, addiction or illness. If we don’t acknowledge our own heartache, she says, we can end up inflicting it on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know—or will know—loss and suffering, we can turn toward one another. 

At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.

About the Author

Named one of the top ten influencers in the world by LinkedIn, Susan Cain is a renowned speaker and author of the award-winning books Quiet Power, Quiet Journal, and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. Translated into more than forty languages, Quiet has appeared on many "best of" lists, spent more than seven years on the New York Times bestseller list, and was named the #1 best book of the year by Fast Company, which also named Cain one of its Most Creative People in Business. Her TED talk on the power of introverts has been viewed over 40 million times.

Author Residence: Closter, NJ

Author Hometown: Lawrence, NY