The Road to Character

By: David Brooks

Narrated by: Arthur Morey, David Brooks

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • David Brooks challenges us to rebalance the scales between the focus on external success—“résumé virtues”—and our core principles.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST

With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deeper values that should inform our lives.

Looking to some of the world’s greatest thinkers and inspiring leaders, Brooks explores how, through internal struggle and a sense of their own limitations, they have built a strong inner character. Labor activist Frances Perkins understood the need to suppress parts of herself so that she could be an instrument in a larger cause. Dwight Eisenhower organized his life not around impulsive self-expression but considered self-restraint. Dorothy Day, a devout Catholic convert and champion of the poor, learned as a young woman the vocabulary of simplicity and surrender. Civil rights pioneers A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin learned reticence and the logic of self-discipline, the need to distrust oneself even while waging a noble crusade.

Blending psychology, politics, spirituality, and confessional, The Road to Character provides an opportunity for us to rethink our priorities, and strive to build rich inner lives marked by humility and moral depth.

“Joy,” David Brooks writes, “is a byproduct experienced by people who are aiming for something else. But it comes.”

Praise for The Road to Character

“A hyper-readable, lucid, often richly detailed human story.”—The New York Times Book Review

“This profound and eloquent book is written with moral urgency and philosophical elegance.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree and The Noonday Demon

“A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin.”—The Guardian

“Original and eye-opening . . . Brooks is a normative version of Malcolm Gladwell, culling from a wide array of scientists and thinkers to weave an idea bigger than the sum of its parts.”—USA Today

I really liked a few of the ideas.

Some of the biographies were interesting, but several parts were dull.

The author talks about several famous people, giving examples of their work and contributions to society.

The author divides humans into two selfs: Adam 1 the traits that appear on a resume, Adam 2 the traits that appear on a tombstone or eulogy.

Adam 2 traits/ideas include the following:
humility, quiet your own ego
struggle against sin (selfishness, prejudice, insecurity, cruelty)
become more disciplined, considerate and loving
one can achieve a good life through their vocation

APPRECIATION:
Two examples showed that one should not do things in hopes of being appreciated. Dorothy Day did many things for the poor and said “don’t expect the poor to appreciate you.” A comment about Augustine “His hunger for admiration enslaved him rather than delighting him. He was at the whim of other people’s facile opinions, sensitive to their slightest criticism.”

DOMESTIC ABUSE:
I’ve always wondered why so many men become abusive to their wives. This book was not about that, but one idea I think is a link to that abusiveness. “Power exaggerates the disposition making a rude person ruder and a controlling person more controlling. The higher you go in life, the fewer people there are to offer honest feedback or restrain your unpleasant traits.” If a woman interrupts her career to give priority to the home and children, she loses power, and he has more power.

AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR:
The narrator Arthur Morey was good.

Narrative mode: 3rd person
Genre: nonfiction self-help, biography.

Informative and edifying, but overly long

I am a huge fan of David Brooks but I ended up skipping the final chapter and a half. There was good content and analysis, but the deep probing into psyches and moral development became tedious after awhile. I did appreciate learning more about influential personalities from the past.

Good for Reflexion

What did you love best about The Road to Character?

The book allows readers to re-calibrate their personal expectations. Reading about other people with true 'character" is very motivating.

Had High Hopes, but underwhelmed.

Struggled to finish and the subject of "character" in humans has long been a topic of significant importance to me.

Too long!

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I just felt like there was way too much information and often wondered what central point was being made.