an essential defense of the people the world loves to revile-yet without whom it would be lost Isaac Newton. Michelangelo. Anne Rice. Barry Bonds. Haruki Murakami. They and countless others belong to a subculture that will never join hands, a group whose voices will never form a chorus. They are loners-and they have at least one thing in common: They keep to themselves. And they like it that way.

Self-reliant, each loner swims alone through a social world-a world of teams, troops and groups-that scorns and misunderstands those who stand apart. Everywhere from newspapers to playgrounds, loners are accused of being crazy, cold, stuck-up, standoffish, selfish, sad, bad, secretive and lonely-and, of course, serial killers. Loners, however, know better than anyone how to entertain themselves-and how to contemplate and to create. They have a knack for imagination, concentration, inner discipline, and invention-a talent for not being bored. Too often, loners buy into society's messages and strive to change, making themselves miserable in the process by hiding their true nature-and hiding from it. In Party of One, Anneli Rufus delivers a long-overdue argument in praise of loners. Assembling evidence from diverse arenas of culture, Rufus recognizes loners as a vital force in world civilization rather than damaged goods who need to be "fixed." A compelling, morally urgent tour de force, Party of One rebuts the prevailing notion that aloneness is indistinguishable from loneliness, and that the only experiences that matter are shared ones.