The Quest for a Moral Life

The Second Mountain

DEBUTED AT NO.1 ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST 
NO.1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE SOCIAL ANIMAL 
 
Are you on your first or second mountain? 
Is life about you - or others? 
About success - or something deeper? 
 
The world tells us that we should pursue our self-interest: career wins, high status, nice things. These are the goals of our first mountain. But at some point in our lives we might find that we're not interested in what other people tell us to want. We want the things that are truly worth wanting. 
 
This is the second mountain. 
 
What does it mean to look beyond yourself and find a moral cause? To forget about independence and discover dependence - to be utterly enmeshed in a web of warm relationships? What does it mean to value intimacy, devotion, responsibility and commitment above individual freedom? In The Second Mountain David Brooks explores the meaning and possibilities that scaling a second mountain offer us and the four commitments that most commonly move us there: family, vocation, philosophy and community. Inspiring, personal and full of joy, this book will help you discover why you were really put on this earth.

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and frequent broadcaster. His previous books include the bestsellers The Social Animal and Bobos in Paradise. His New York Times columns reach over 800,000 readers across the globe.

Are you on your first or second mountain? Is life about yourself or others? Are you self-improving or committed? 
 
Mainstream culture teaches us that human beings pursue our self-interest - money, power, fame. But at some point in our life we might discover that we're not interested in what other people tell us to want. We want to want the things that are truly worthy of wanting. At this point, you have moved to your second mountain. 
 
What does it mean to elevate your desires, to look beyond consumption and find a moral cause? To forget about independence and discover dependence - to be utterly enmeshed in a web of warm relationships? What does it mean to want intimacy, devotion, responsibility and commitment above individual freedom? In The Second Mountain David Brooks explores the meaning and possibilities that scaling a second mountain offer us, and the four commitments that most commonly move us there: family, vocation, philosophy and community. Inspiring, personal and full of joy, this is the start of a deeper journey into the world.

The Road to Character

The No. 1 New York Times bestseller on the secret to leading a good life 
 
We live in a Big Me culture: universities and businesses alike reward goal-oriented superstars and those who self-promote are most likely to thrive. But what does this say about us? 
 
David Brooks argues that our hunger for wealth and status is eroding our ability to create meaningful inner lives. To show us how to live better, he looks at people whose sense of humility was fundamental to their success. What they all understood was a simple but counterintuitive truth: in order to fulfil yourself, you must learn how to forget yourself.

The Road to Character feels particularly pertinent to some immediate issues right now: the level of public cynicism about politicians and "experts", witnessed in the catastrophic EU referendum, or the bland managerialism that is replacing discussion about the core values of our educational system

Profound and eloquent . . . written with moral urgency and philosophical elegance

Andrew Solomon, author of 'Far From the Tree'

A powerful, haunting book that works its way beneath your skin . . . worth logging off Facebook to read it

Everyone concerned about the good life should read this book

A hyper-readable, lucid, often richly detailed human story . . . In the age of the selfie, Brooks wishes to exhort us back to a semiclassical sense of self-restraint, self-erasure and self-suspicion

[Brooks] emerges as a countercultural leader . . . The literary achievement of The Road to Character is inseparable from the virtues of its author . . . The highlight of the material is the quality of the author's moral and spiritual judgments

David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and frequent broadcaster. His previous books include the bestsellers The Social Animal and Bobos in Paradise. His New York Times columns reach over 800,000 readers across the globe.

David Brooks

I liked David’s previous book... but this one is even better. His key premise is one I haven't found elsewhere: that conversational and social skills aren't just innate traits—they can be learned and improved upon... It’s more than a guide to better conversations; it’s a blueprint for a more connected and humane way of living.

5 Great Things To Read and Watch this summer

Original and useful&hellip; Brooks is a chatty, likeable guide

A hands-on guide to making meaningful human connections

It really is a manual for our times - and everyone should read it

He writes brilliantly&hellip; charming and enthusiastic&hellip; [Brooks] offers easily digestible advice to give the reader constructive and practical tools for genuinely listening and having better interpersonal conversations

I raced through the book, which is well-structured and engagingly written, and afterwards found myself making a greater effort in conversations. At the school gates, I swapped my formulaic how-are-yous for questions that invite a more genuine response, sometimes simply: &ldquo;How&rsquo;s your day been?&rdquo; I became more alert to my bad habit of &ldquo;topping&rdquo; &ndash; when someone confides in you and you top it with a sob story of your own. I made tiny changes, things that friends would be unlikely to notice &ndash; and yet the difference was transformative

How to Know A Person offers a series of well-wrought stories and punchy reflections on relationship-building

The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

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. 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 readers become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps readers 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.

David Brooks

Praise for How To Know a Person

I liked David’s previous book... but this one is even better. His key premise is one I haven't found elsewhere: that conversational and social skills aren't just innate traits—they can be learned and impro ...

Original and useful… Brooks is a chatty, likeable guide

A hands-on guide to making meaningful human connections

I liked David’s previous book... but this one is even better. His key premise is one I haven't found elsewhere: that conversational and social skills aren't just innate traits—they can be learned and impro ...

Original and useful… Brooks is a chatty, likeable guide

A hands-on guide to making meaningful human connections

I liked David’s previous book... but this one is even better. His key premise is one I haven't found elsewhere: that conversational and social skills aren't just innate traits—they can be learned and impro ...

Original and useful… Brooks is a chatty, likeable guide

A hands-on guide to making meaningful human connections

Books by David Brooks

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