In her inspiring new masterpiece, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet describes her powerful quest to understand how love, loss and sorrow make us whole – revealing the power of a bittersweet outlook on life.

Bittersweetness is a tendency towards states of longing, poignancy and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. It recognizes that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.

• If you seek out beauty in your everyday life
• If you find comfort or inspiration in a rainy day
• If you react intensely to music, art and nature

Then you probably identify with the bittersweet state of mind.

With Quiet, Susan Cain urged our society to cultivate space for the undervalued, indispensable introverts among us, thereby revealing an untapped power hidden in plain sight. Now she employs the same mix of research, storytelling and memoir to explore how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity and connection.

Cain shows movingly how a bittersweet state of mind – though we've been blind to its value – is the quiet force that helps us transcend our personal and collective pain. It can change the way we live, the way we work and the way we love. If we realize that all humans know – or will know – loss and suffering, we can turn towards one another.

At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways.