The Lost Art Of Good Conversation

Cutting through all the white noise, chatter, and superficiality our cell phones and social media cause, one of Tibet's highest and most respected spiritual leaders offers simple and practical advice to help us increase our attentions spans, become better listeners, and strive to appreciate the people around us. In this easy to understand and helpful book, Sakyong Mipham provides inspiring ideas and practical tips on how to be more present in your day-to-day life, helping us to communicate in ways that elevates the dignity of everyone involved. Great for families, employees and employers and everyone who spend too much time on Facebook, Instagram, and feel "disconnected" in our "connected" world, Good Conversation is a journey back to basics.

“Full of revealing, instantly applicable ideas for leveraging your strengths and overcoming your weaknesses.” —Adam Grant, author of Think Again and Originals, and host of the TED podcast WorkLife For many of us, listening is simply something we do on autopilot. We hear just enough of what others say to get our work done, maintain friendships, and be polite with our neighbors. But we miss crucial opportunities to go deeper—to give and receive honest feedback, to make connections that will endure for the long haul, and to discover who people truly are at their core. Fortunately, listening can be improved—and Ximena Vengoechea can show you how. In Listen Like You Mean It, she offers an essential listening guide for our times, revealing tried-and-true strategies honed in her own research sessions and drawn from interviews with marriage counselors, podcast hosts, life coaches, journalists, filmmakers, and other listening experts. Through Vengoechea’s set of scripts, key questions, exercises, and illustrations, you’ll learn to: • Quickly build rapport with strangers • Ask the right questions to deepen a conversation • Pause at the right time to encourage vulnerability • Navigate a conversation that’s gone off the rails Now more than ever, we need to feel heard, connected, and understood in a world that keeps turning up the volume. Warm, funny, and immensely practical, this book shows you how.

Named a Best Business Book of 2021 by Soundview Magazine Reclaim the power of genuine human connection Networking is often considered a necessary evil for all working professionals. With social media platforms like Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at our disposal, reaching potential investors or employers is much easier. Yet, these connections often feel transactional, agenda-driven, and dehumanizing, leaving professionals feeling burnt out and stressed out. Instead, we should connect on a human level and build authentic relationships beyond securing a new job or a new investor for your next big idea. To build real and meaningful networking contacts, we need to go back to basics, remembering that technology is a tool and more than just a means to an end. We need to tap into our humanity and learn to be more intentional and authentic. As a “serial connector” and communications expert, Susan McPherson has a lifetime of experience building genuine connections in and out of work. Her methodology is broken down into three simple steps: Gather: Instead of waiting for the perfect networking opportunity to come to you, think outside the box and create your own opportunity. Host your own dinner party, join a local meet-up group, or volunteer at your neighborhood food pantry. Ask: Instead of leading with our own rehearsed elevator pitches asking for help, ask to help, opening the door to share resources, experience, contacts, and perspectives that add diversity to your own vision. Do: Turn new connections into meaningful relationships by taking these newly formed relationships deeper. Follow through on the promises you made and keep in touch. Woven together with helpful tips and useful advice on making the most out of every step, this book draws on McPherson’s own experience as a renowned “serial connector,” as well as the real life success stories of friends and clients. Filled with humor, humility, and wisdom, The Lost Art of Connecting is the handbook we all need to foster personal and professional relationships that blur the lines between work and play—and enrich our lives in every way.

A Columbia University physician comes across a popular medieval text on dying well written after the horror of the Black Plague and discovers ancient wisdom for rethinking death and gaining insight today on how we can learn the lost art of dying well in this wise, clear-eyed book that is as compelling and soulful as Being Mortal, When Breath Becomes Air, and Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. As a specialist in both medical ethics and the treatment of older patients, Dr. L. S. Dugdale knows a great deal about the end of life. Far too many of us die poorly, she argues. Our culture has overly medicalized death: dying is often institutional and sterile, prolonged by unnecessary resuscitations and other intrusive interventions. We are not going gently into that good night—our reliance on modern medicine can actually prolong suffering and strip us of our dignity. Yet our lives do not have to end this way. Centuries ago, in the wake of the Black Plague, a text was published offering advice to help the living prepare for a good death. Written during the late Middle Ages, ars moriendi—The Art of Dying—made clear that to die well, one first had to live well and described what practices best help us prepare. When Dugdale discovered this Medieval book, it was a revelation. Inspired by its holistic approach to the final stage we must all one day face, she draws from this forgotten work, combining its wisdom with the knowledge she has gleaned from her long medical career. The Lost Art of Dying is a twenty-first century ars moriendi, filled with much-needed insight and thoughtful guidance that will change our perceptions. By recovering our sense of finitude, confronting our fears, accepting how our bodies age, developing meaningful rituals, and involving our communities in end-of-life care, we can discover what it means to both live and die well. And like the original ars moriendi, The Lost Art of Dying includes nine black-and-white drawings from artist Michael W. Dugger. Dr. Dugdale offers a hopeful perspective on death and dying as she shows us how to adapt the wisdom from the past to our lives today. The Lost Art of Dying is a vital, affecting book that reconsiders death, death culture, and how we can transform how we live each day, including our last.

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

Read Catherine Blyth's posts on the Penguin Blog. Reclaim the pleasures and possibilities of great conversation with this sparkling guide from the witty pen of an Englishwoman wise to its art Every day we use cell phones and computers to communicate, but it's easy to forget that we possess a communication technology that has been in research and development for thousands of years. Catherine Blyth points out the sorry state of disrepair that conversation has fallen into-and then, taking examples from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, she gives us the tools to rebuild. The Art of Conversation isn't about etiquette, elocution, or knowing how to hold your teacup with your little finger crooked just so. It's about something simple and profound: connecting. Conversation costs nothing, but can bring you the world, because it transcends the ability to talk to anyone. What transforms encounters into adventures is how we listen, laugh, flirt, and flatter. Blyth celebrates techniques for reading and changing minds, whether you're in a bar or a boardroom. As Alexander Pope nearly wrote, "True ease in talking comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance." When you have read The Art of Conversation, you'll not only know the steps, but hear the music like never before.

Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.

Being a man is not about what you are, but about who you are. It is about how you chose to live your life. There is a huge difference between being a male and being a man. In this humorous and slightly irreverent book, Derrick Van Orden builds on his 26 years as a Navy SEAL, sailor, father and grandfather to guide the next generation along the path to manhood. Intertwining stories from his extensive career as a frogman, with contributions from subject matter experts ranging from highly decorated fellow Navy SEALs to the Academy Award winning actor Jon Voight, Derrick explains in simple terms how to do the things men across the world used to know how to do - the forgotten art of Manhood: Change a tire; Sight in a gun; Tie a tie; Cook a bat to eat; Throw a punch; Drive like a SEAL; And many more need-to-know man skills.