How do you know someone?

David Brooks

If you're going to care about someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you must be able to see them. If you're going to work closely with someone, you must be able to make them feel valued and appreciated. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more certain I am that there is one skill at the core of any healthy family, business, classroom, community, or nation: the ability to see each other, to know other people, and to make them feel valued, heard, and understood." Yet we humans are not very good at this. All around us are people who feel unseen, invisible, and misunderstood. In *How to Know Someone*, Brooks seeks to help us improve by asking questions that are fundamental to all of us. With his characteristic curiosity, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, as well as from the worlds of theater, history, and education, to offer a welcoming, optimistic, and integrative approach to human connection. *How to Know Someone* helps readers become more understanding and considerate of others; It also helps them find the joy of being seen. Along the way, the book offers a potential solution for a society torn apart by fragmentation, hostility, and misperceptions. Brooks argues that seeing another person is a profoundly creative act: How can we look into someone's eyes and see something great in them, and in turn see something greater in ourselves? "How to Know Someone" is for anyone seeking connection, seeking understanding, and longing to be understood.