100 Books Like Introvert

A bookworm and word lover from the get-go, I always pushed back a bit on society’s expectations that we all act like extroverts. I studied philosophy at school, taught it for a few years, but quit academic life to become a freelance writer and then a marketing expert. When I took a personality test sometime around 2008 and realized I was an introvert – and a fairly extreme one at that – I began seeing more and more ways in which our culture misunderstands and disparages introverts. Now retired from marketing, I explore prejudices against introverts and introverts’ special talents in my weekly newsletter, Introvert UpThink.

A bookworm and word lover from the get-go, I always pushed back a bit on society’s expectations that we all act like extroverts. I studied philosophy at school, taught it for a few years, but quit academic life to become a freelance writer and then a marketing expert. When I took a personality test sometime around 2008 and realized I was an introvert – and a fairly extreme one at that – I began seeing more and more ways in which our culture misunderstands and disparages introverts. Now retired from marketing, I explore prejudices against introverts and introverts’ special talents in my weekly newsletter, Introvert UpThink.

A bookworm and word lover from the get-go, I always pushed back a bit on society’s expectations that we all act like extroverts. I studied philosophy at school, taught it for a few years, but quit academic life to become a freelance writer and then a marketing expert. When I took a personality test sometime around 2008 and realized I was an introvert – and a fairly extreme one at that – I began seeing more and more ways in which our culture misunderstands and disparages introverts. Now retired from marketing, I explore prejudices against introverts and introverts’ special talents in my weekly newsletter, Introvert UpThink.

A bookworm and word lover from the get-go, I always pushed back a bit on society’s expectations that we all act like extroverts. I studied philosophy at school, taught it for a few years, but quit academic life to become a freelance writer and then a marketing expert. When I took a personality test sometime around 2008 and realized I was an introvert – and a fairly extreme one at that – I began seeing more and more ways in which our culture misunderstands and disparages introverts. Now retired from marketing, I explore prejudices against introverts and introverts’ special talents in my weekly newsletter, Introvert UpThink.

During my divorce, I became fascinated with the psychology behind divorce and the pathology behind personalities. I started doing a lot of research for my memoir that I was writing. Working professionally in the entertainment industry, I was fortunate enough to publish my book and get some publicity behind it. Because of my research and experience, I’ve been a guest on ABC, FOX, and have been in publications like HelloGiggles, Woman's Day, Authority Magazine, and more. I truly love understanding why a relationship works and why it doesn’t sometimes. Humor can’t cure a divorce, but I do believe it can help and if I can contribute to that, well then I think that’s fabulous. ☺ 

Being a leader is hard, being a woman in leadership is exponentially harder. I learned this firsthand at 22 during my first management role at one of the big 4 accounting firms. I did it all wrong and I want to help women leaders avoid all the mistake I made. The most important thing I learned is the importance of relationships. What I do now is help people communicate to connect because what I believe is that real relationships lead to real results. And close relationships, personal and professional, just make us happier, and who doesn’t want that?

I have always been fascinated by psychology and the science behind why people are the way they are. This is probably why as a journalist, I’ve always been drawn to writing personal profiles of fascinating people, digging deeper into how they overcame various obstacles and setbacks. I have read so many leadership books that focus on success, but really found a gap when it came to those in-depth stories, which is why I wrote The Setback Cycle, a career advice book that focuses specifically on that messy middle part of leadership. My goal was to share the stories of people who overcame setbacks while offering an actionable framework that guides us through our own.

I am a writer. That is the simplest way to condense the comedic, entrepreneurial, megalomaniacal human who appears in this form. And yes, I am an introvert, but one of the few who lacks stage fright. Additionally, I have met four of the five authors on this list. I am hoping the fifth one invites me to speak on her new journey to Unlock Your Big Energy. In conclusion, I 💜choco chip cookies, Murder, She Wrote, and BTS, in that order. Thank you for reading. 🙂

I grew up in a talkative family in an extroverted culture near NYC. I discovered I also liked the quiet and found a man to marry who was very introverted. After the “opposites attract” phase we needed to learn ways to make our differences work and we've been doing that for almost 50 years. I took this knowledge to the workplace where, as a career coach and learning and development professional, I became a champion for introverts. I've written 4 books on harnessing the talents of both introverts and extroverts at work and speak about this topic around the world. I believe we are all better off when we work through our differences to achieve magic.

Mentioning health and safety is a great turn-off at parties when someone asks what you do for a living! Starting my training company 30 years ago, and later representing UK small business, it also became clear that we needed a practical, hands-on approach not a theoretical framework to ensure the safety and health of workers. Having five sons of my own (yes, really) gave even more reason to ensure people understood risk assessment, so my first book was published. Twenty years later, I am still writing non-fiction books and passionate about health and safety.