Every once in a while, you come across individuals who make you feel better just for having encountered them. As today’s guest, David Brooks, puts it, “They seem deeply good. They listen well. They make you feel funny and valued. They are not thinking about what wonderful work they are doing. They are not thinking about themselves at all.”
Mr. Brooks drew inspiration from these encounters to write a bestselling book, The Road to Character . It’s now out in paperback. In the book, Mr. Brooks challenges us to pay more attention to virtues that exist at the core of our being, like kindness, bravery, honesty or faithfulness. And he delves into the lives of 10 historical figures to explore character in some depth and how it can serve as a compass for life.
Today we’re featuring an encore edition of our interview with David Brooks. He visited Boise last fall as the featured speaker at Boise State’s Distinguished Lecture Series, and The Road to Character was our Campus Read this past academic year. Mr. Brooks will be returning to Idaho later this month for the Sun Valley Writers’ Conference, which this year runs June 30th to July 3rd and is built around the theme, “A Question of Character.” The conference is sold out, but there is free lawn seating for Mr. Brook’s talk at the Sun Valley Pavilion. Details and tickets are online at svwc.com.
David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on “PBS NewsHour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
