Afternoon Book Club

Winfield Public Library’s Afternoon Book Club will host a discussion of Bittersweet:  How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain on Wednesday, April 24 at 2:30pm in the library’s community room.

In this follow up to her previous bestseller, Quiet:  the Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking," Cain uses her mix of memoir, storytelling, and research to explore sorrow and longing.  Copies of the book will be available at the front desk beginning on March 26.

More from the publisher:

Bittersweetness is a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy when beholding beauty. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired. A song in a minor key, an elegiac poem, or even a touching television commercial all can bring us to this sublime, even holy, state of mind – and, ultimately, to greater kinship with our fellow humans.

But bittersweetness is not, as we tend to think, just a momentary feeling or event. It’s also a way of being, a storied heritage. Our artistic and spiritual traditions – amplified by recent scientific and management research – teach us its power.

Cain shows how a bittersweet state of mind is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. If we don’t acknowledge our own sorrows and longings, she says, we can end up inflicting them on others via abuse, domination, or neglect. But if we realize that all humans know – or will know – loss and suffering, we can’t turn toward each other. And we can learn to transform our own pain into creativity, transcendence, and connection.

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