Review: Reading People by Anne Bogel

Title: Reading People

Author: Anne Bogel

Publisher: Baker Books

Publication Date: September 19, 2017

ISBN: 9780801072918

Synopsis from Goodreads:
For readers who long to dig deeper into what makes them uniquely them (and why that matters), popular blogger Anne Bogel has done the hard part–collecting, exploring, and explaining the most popular personality frameworks, such as Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, Enneagram, and others. She explains to readers the life-changing insights that can be gained from each and shares specific, practical real-life applications across all facets of life, including love and marriage, productivity, parenting, the workplace, and spiritual life. In her friendly, relatable style, Bogel shares engaging personal stories that show firsthand how understanding personality can revolutionize the way we live, love, work, and pray. 

I’m so excited to share this book with you! Anne Bogel, also known as The Modern Mrs. Darcy, is one of my favourite bloggers. I’m an avid reader of her blog emails and I love tuning into her podcast, What Should I Read Next?. So, naturally, I was thrilled when she announced the release of her book, Reading People. Anne has spoken about personality theory many times on her blog. She introduced me in the past to Myers-Briggs (I’m an ISFJ-T) and spoke a lot about how awareness of one’s personality can help us understand how and why we are the way we are. I’ve done a lot of reading on personality since then, and done many personality-typing quizzes to gain further insight into myself and what makes me, me.

Reading People will walk you through the various assessments that exist out there in the world–what they look at, how they assess, and how to understand them. Anne’s writing is clear, engaging, and friendly–the same qualities that drew me to her blog. Although we’ve never met, and probably never will, through her honesty and her anecdotes, as well as her own thoughts and experiences with the processes of discovering her own personality types, I feel as thought I’ve gained a friend in her. Her new book opens the door for those looking to understand themselves and those around them better. She talks a lot about being an HSP, a highly sensitive person. I never thought this to be something I might identify with, but after reading this book, recognizing many of the characteristics in myself then completing the online quiz with quite conclusive results, I feel as though I’ve come to understand myself even deeper.

I hope you’ll all take the time to read this incredibly informative and relatable book. A bit of introspection goes a long way to understanding oneself and others in your life. It’ll help you understand conflict better and how to navigate it. It’ll show you how to accept, understand, and even appreciate different strengths in others. It’ll provide insight into friendships and relationships. The list goes on. This is a great book and it deserves a read.