How to Know a Person
- NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
How to Know a Person by David Brooks is one of 2026's most credible books, appearing on 1 of the year's most respected lists, including Bloomberg, for a Consensus Score of 12 out of 100.
Appears on these lists
Our take
AI-draftedBrooks extends his columnist's preoccupation with character and connection into a practical manual for actually seeing other people, built around specific conversational techniques rather than the more abstract moral-philosophy mode of his earlier books. The recurring criticism is that Brooks draws heavily on his own social circle, which sits awkwardly against a book explicitly about learning to see people unlike yourself.
In the press
“A hands-on guide to making meaningful human connections”
Kirkus Reviews
How the Consensus Score is calculated
Our Consensus Score is our own transparent editorial metric — not a user rating. It weighs each list by the credibility of its source, how recent the listing is, and any award status. Here is the full breakdown.
| Source | Authority | Recency | Award | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bloomberg | 0.80 | 0.70 | 1.00× | 0.56 |
| Weighted sum → Score | 0.56 → 12 | |||
Similar consensus books
Because they appear on some of the same lists.
Frequently asked
What lists is How to Know a Person on?
How to Know a Person appears on 1 list in our 2026 corpus, including Bloomberg.
What is its Consensus Score?
How to Know a Person has a Consensus Score of 12 out of 100, our transparent editorial measure of how many credible lists agree on it.