Viking scoops 'illuminating' new work from Quiet author Cain

Viking has scooped an "illuminating" new work from Susan Cain, author of the bestseller Quiet (Penguin).

The publisher bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Bill Hamilton at A M Heath on behalf of Richard Pine of Inkwell Management for Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole. Daniel Crewe, publishing director for Viking Non-Fiction, is the book’s UK editor.

It will publish on 7th April 2022 in hardcover and digital formats. An audio edition, read by the author, will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio. 

Viking said the 2012 publication of Quiet "began a global movement that changed the way society views introversion". Quiet has sold 246,663 copies in paperback via Nielsen BookScan, and Cain has sold a total of 278,410 books for £2.2m in her career. In her new work, Cain "employs the same skills and sensibility" to look at the powers of a bittersweet, melancholic outlook and why our culture has been so blind to its value.

The publisher continued: "Bittersweetness is a tendency towards sorrow and longing, an acute awareness of passing time, and a piercing joy when beholding beauty. It recognises that light and dark, birth and death, bitter and sweet, are forever paired.

"Following a trail of centuries-old artistic and wisdom traditions as well as contemporary psychology and management research, Cain reveals how bittersweetness is the key to leading a full and satisfying life. Yet, until now, its power has been hiding in plain sight. As Bittersweet shows, our obsession with happiness is not making us happy, healthy, or whole. It’s by embracing our darker emotions, as well as the light, that we discover our deepest meaning and connection, love and joy."