How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

Reviewed by Kathleen Jenkins

January 1, 2025

By David Brooks. Random House, 2023. 320 pages. $30/hardcover; $14.99/eBook.

David Brooks, a New York Times columnist and bestselling author of six other nonfiction books, has written his latest to help people develop the skills to learn more about others. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen gives suggestions on how to go beyond the abstract words of “relationships,” “community,” and “friendship” in order to truly “see someone else deeply and . . . let them feel valued, heard, and understood.”

Brooks writes in a conversational manner with many examples of real-life experience, presented alongside data from research, which is explained clearly and with suggestions distilled from trial and practice. I found the book to be entertaining, thought-provoking, and enlightening. Brooks’s advice doesn’t irritate as it doesn’t appear to come from a place of instruction, as if he is better than you and you need to be educated. Instead, it comes across as a friendly conversation with a person who is exploring ways he can improve and wants to share a few useful thoughts with others willing to listen.

The book is organized into three parts, with the first part being “I See You.” This covers lighter, introductory material such as how not to see a person, and suggests “right questions” to ask. The book then becomes more challenging in part 2: “I See You in Your Struggles.” This portion deals with heavier topics such as navigating culture wars, communicating with friends in despair, and talking with people about how they’ve been shaped by their suffering. The concluding segment, part 3, is titled “I See You with Your Strengths.” This section discusses “the Big Five personality traits” (extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism, agreeableness, and openness), and it demonstrates how a person can gain wisdom from others. Each part has five to seven supporting chapters that provide anecdotes and tools to develop skills in a particular area.

The section of the book that resonated most with me is the chapter on life stories, found in part 3. Brooks shares an anecdote from behavioral psychologist Nicholas Epley, who is “well aware that social connection is the number one source of happiness, success, good health, and much of the sweetness of life.” Yet while riding the commuter train to work one day, Epley “looked around and it hit him: Nobody was talking to anyone. It was just headphones and screens.” We learn that Epley went on to conduct research to investigate why people don’t talk to each other; he concludes: “We don’t start conversations because we’re bad at predicting how much we’ll enjoy them.” Brooks’s suggestions for creating positive social connections include asking people about their life stories and then listening to the tone of their voice, the characters in the speaker’s head, and the choices they made at crossroads.

This doesn’t mean we should ask people what they do. For most people, that conversation is usually meant to determine a person’s employment status and rarely goes anywhere interesting. The questions we should be asking are ones that elicit a narrative. This question can be something along the lines of what do you hope to do in the next five years, what led you to believe XX, or what crossroads are you at. This allows for the possibility to see what is valuable to the person rather than learning biographical data such as whether or how they are employed. The type of questions asked as well as the responses we give to their answers can encourage the conversation and the sharing of experiences.

Quakers often talk about community being very important to them. Sometimes the questions asked in the attempt to build community are stilted, routine, and can appear disingenuous. Brooks has “come to think of questioning as a moral practice.” For Friends, there is a deeper possibility in asking better questions, as they can allow a person to reveal and see that of God in the people they talk with, and this can add vibrant life to the meeting’s community.

This book offers readers a way to develop the skills to really know another person: not just their surface details but the information that makes each person unique. In essence, the book says to ask good questions, listen to the answers, and ask more questions after that. This knowledge leads to greater empathy and better relationships, which in turn, creates stronger, more fulfilling communities, including among Friends. I highly recommend How to Know a Person as a helpful guide for getting there.

Kathleen Jenkins, a member of Live Oak Meeting in Houston, Tex., is always looking to make deeper connections with people. She served as book review editor for Friends Journal from 2022–24.