Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • How to Know a Person

  • The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
  • By: David Brooks
  • Narrated by: David Brooks
  • Length: 7 hrs and 27 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (103 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

How to Know a Person

By: David Brooks
Narrated by: David Brooks
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives - from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain

If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be able to make them feel recognized and valued. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more I come to the certainty that there is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community or nation: the ability to see each other, to know other people, to make them feel valued, heard and understood."

And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us to do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us. If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person's story should you pay attention to?

Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and from the worlds of theatre, history, and education, to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps listeners become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps listeners find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.

The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is a profoundly creative act: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, seeking to understand and yearning to be understood.

©2023 David Brooks (P)2023 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Never Forget to Laugh: Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course in Miracles cover art
Areté cover art
The Origins of Woke cover art
21 Things You Forgot About Being a Kid cover art
The Power of Suffering cover art
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People cover art
Slay Your Dragons with Compassion cover art
Fully Human cover art
High Conflict cover art
Cassandra Speaks cover art
The Road Back to You cover art
Sacred Contracts cover art
The Five Keys to Mindful Communication cover art
Changes That Heal cover art
Julia cover art

What listeners say about How to Know a Person

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    59
  • 4 Stars
    27
  • 3 Stars
    12
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    61
  • 4 Stars
    31
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    51
  • 4 Stars
    31
  • 3 Stars
    8
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    4

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Rich with concise knowledge & insights

I need to listen to this again, and again - as it spoke to me on so many levels and I want to absorb more of the richness this well researched book so articulately delivers.
Thank you for your assimilation and sharing of knowledge.
It’s helped me comprehend a deep shadow in my life and shined various lights in that darkness.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

‘My access to me’

David Brooks is the North Star in the firmament of humanity.
This book will speak to your essence and nurture your individual greatness.
Narrated exquisitely by the author.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating deep-dive into how to relate deeply and compassionately with others. A tour de force.

Beautifully narrating through vivid stories and examples, Brooks imparts wisdom by means of nectar. He is a great illuminator.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Thought provoking introspection.

I will need to listen to this book again and again as I’m sure I shall illuminate more and more of myself each time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Brooks brings a very uplifting curiosity and enthusiasm to relating and understanding people

I feel like I want to read it over after listening, there's so much in it to be mulled over and considered. A useful, amusing, emotive and heart centered book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Just wonderful

I couldn't fault it. Some great advice and a superb presentation. Well done, David, you really covered this subject well.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

A beautiful pleading for the human conection

It is a very good book with deep insights into human life and human connection in this era of people growing apart and living lonely or through technology. The only thing I didn't like was the author's style of reading. Quite monotonous and tiring.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Timely, wise & counter-culture

This writer says the hard things that we need to hear - both as individuals and as a culture - in ways that I could hear and internalise. There is both reason and passion here. I will read/listen again and I’ve bought the book in hard-copy. I wish that I could make it assigned reading for every adult in my world: it really is that important.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great knowledge I gained

Great reading with many examples to fit the story. Really enjoyed. Great insight to empathy and how one can create it themselves.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Really Absorbing

Well read with very relatable and interesting examples. I found myself noticing things in every day conversation that referred directly to what I’d just heard. Thoroughly recommend.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful