The Road to Character

**#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