Book picks similar to
The Gift of the Gab: How Eloquence Works by David Crystal
non-fiction
language
nonfiction
rhetoric
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In
Roger Fisher - 1981
One of the primary business texts of the modern era, it is based on the work of the Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deals with all levels of negotiation and conflict resolution. Getting to Yes offers a proven, step-by-step strategy for coming to mutually acceptable agreements in every sort of conflict. Thoroughly updated and revised, it offers readers a straight- forward, universally applicable method for negotiating personal and professional disputes without getting angry-or getting taken.This is by far the best thing I`ve ever read about negotiation. It is equally relevant for the individual who would like to keep his friends, property, and income and the statesman who would like to keep the peace." --John Kenneth Galbraith"
How to Argue and Win Every Time: At Home, At Work, In Court, Everywhere, Every Day
Gerry Spence - 1995
So you want to know how to compose the winning arguent? How to prepare it? Deliver it? Spense believes that argument begins with the person, and that to argue successfully one must accomplish more than mere teechnique. He maintains that success in arguments, as in life, is a derivative of personal growth, of discoverring who we are, and embracing the uniqueness that is individual to each of us. The Laws of Arguing According to Gerry Spence1. Everyone is capable of making the winning aargument.2. Winning is getting what we want, which also means helping "others" get what they want.3. Learn that words are a weapon, and can be used hostilely in combat.4. Know that there is always a "biological advantage" of delivering the TRUTH.5. Assault is not argument.6. Use fear as an ally in pubic speaking or in argument. Learn to convert its energy.7. Let emotions show and don't discourage passion.8. Don't be blinded by brilliance.9. Learn to speak with the body. The body sometimes speaks more powerfully than words. 10 Know that the enemy is not the person with whom we are engaged in a failing argument, but the vision within ourselves
Designing Your Life: Build a Life that Works for You
Bill Burnett - 2016
Now in book form for the first time, their simple method will teach you how to use basic design tools to create a life that will work for you.Using real-life stories and proven techniques like reframing, prototyping and mind-mapping, you will learn how to build your way forwards, step-by-positive-step, to a life that’s better by a design of your own making.Because a well-designed life means a life well-lived.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
Francine Prose - 2006
Written with passion, humor, and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart - to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; she is deeply moved by the brilliant characterization in George Eliot's Middlemarch. She looks to John Le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O'Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail. And, most important, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted.
The Prodigal Tongue: The Love-Hate Relationship Between American and British English
Lynne Murphy - 2018
Professor Lynne Murphy is on the linguistic front line. In The Prodigal Tongue she explores the fiction and reality of the special relationship between British and American English. By examining the causes and symptoms of American Verbal Inferiority Complex and its flipside, British Verbal Superiority Complex, Murphy unravels the prejudices, stereotypes and insecurities that shape our attitudes to our own language.With great humo(u)r and new insights, Lynne Murphy looks at the social, political and linguistic forces that have driven American and British English in different directions: how Americans got from centre to center, why British accents are growing away from American ones, and what different things we mean when we say estate, frown, or middle class. Is anyone winning this war of the words? Will Yanks and Brits ever really understand each other?
The Easy Way to Stop Smoking: Join the Millions Who Have Become Nonsmokers Using the Easyway Method
Allen Carr - 1985
Allen Carr’s innovative Easyway method—which he discovered after his own 100-cigarette-a-day habit nearly drove him to despair—has helped millions kick smoking without feeling anxious and deprived. That’s because he helps smokers discover the psychological reasons behind their dependency, explains in detail how to handle the withdrawal symptoms, shows them how to avoid situations when temptation might become too strong, and enables them to stay smoke-free. Carr discusses such issues as nicotine addiction; the social “brainwashing” that encourages smoking; the false belief that a cigarette relieves stress; the role boredom plays in sabotaging efforts to stop; and the main reasons for failure. With this proven program, smokers will be throwing away their packs for good.
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
Bill Bryson - 1990
From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.
How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life
Catherine Price - 2018
Is your phone the first thing you reach for in the morning and the last thing you touch before bed? Do you frequently pick it up "just to check," only to look up forty-five minutes later wondering where the time has gone? Do you say you want to spend less time on your phone--but have no idea how to do so without giving it up completely? If so, this book is your solution.Award-winning journalist Catherine Price presents a practical, hands-on plan to break up--and then make up--with your phone. The goal? A long-term relationship that actually feels good. You'll discover how phones and apps are designed to be addictive, and learn how the time we spend on them damages our abilities to focus, think deeply, and form new memories. You'll then make customized changes to your settings, apps, environment, and mindset that will ultimately enable you to take back control of your life.
Words That Change Minds: The 14 Patterns for Mastering the Language of Influence
Shelle Rose Charvet - 1995
Do you work and live with people who are hard to convince? Who dismiss ideas before even thinking about them? Do you want to know how to influence people, without being manipulative? Want to find out how people get motivated, make decisions, to be more persuasive with everyone? Learn how to use the right words with the right people, and get through the “Communication Wall” Have you ever felt like you were talking to a wall? Well, that’s a very accurate description of what’s happening when 2 people are communicating! Everyone has a metaphorical “Communication Wall” around them to protect them from “bad people”. But in all of our walls, we have left some bricks out, to let the “good people” communicate with us. The problem in communication is not the wall, because the wall is standard equipment that everyone has. The problem comes from the holes where the bricks have been left out. The holes come in specific shapes, unique to each person. And if you want to communicate with that person, you need to use words, and behavior that fit exactly with the holes in the other person’s wall. Shelle Rose Charvet, best-selling author of Words That Change Minds shows you how to match your language to people around you (in your work, with your colleagues, your boss and your clients, and at home, with your partner, family and other relationships). Learn the persuasion psychology, spark interest and enthusiasm and get what you want. In Words That Change Minds you will: - Learn the influence science and practice. - Discover the ways people unconsciously get motivated, process information and make decisions. - Decode any communication problem and solve it. - Find out how to pry open mental space in even the most closed of minds. - Create rapport and credibility with anyone. - Avoid inadvertently saying or doing the wrong thing. - Get practical applications for sales, marketing, recruiting, negotiation, teaching, training, communication at work, conflict resolution. - Increase your impact in interpersonal communication, teamwork, and in mass communication. Words That Change Minds is based on the Language and Behavior Profile, (LAB Profile® for short) – a powerful tool that enables you to understand, predict and influence behavior by de-coding the language people use. You can directly influence people one-on-one, in groups and even in mass communication by customizing your language to match their subconscious Motivation Patterns. Increase your impact, improve relationships and reduce conflicts, by using the Words That Change Minds. The NEW 3rd edition of Words That Change Minds has more than 50% new material; examples, research, advanced applications, with 7 completely new chapters, including: 1. How to Complete a LAB Profile® 2. Conversational Coaching with the LAB Profile® 3. Understanding and Working with Combination Patterns 4. Solving Communication Problems 5. Influencing Strategies and Techniques 6. The LAB Profile® of Conflict 7. LAB Profile® Inventions and Tools, and more. Interested? Just scroll up and get your copy today! About the author: Shelle Rose Charvet is a bestselling author and the international expert on Influencing Language.
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
Joshua Foer - 2011
From the United States Memory Championship to deep within the author's own mind, this is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.
How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships
Leil Lowndes - 1998
What is their "Midas touch?"What it boils down to is a more skillful way of dealing with people.The author has spent her career teaching people how to communicate for success. In her book How to Talk to Anyone (Contemporary Books, October 2003) Lowndes offers 92 easy and effective sure-fire success techniques-- she takes the reader from first meeting all the way up to sophisticated techniques used by the big winners in life. In this information-packed book you'll find:9 ways to make a dynamite first impression 14 ways to master small talk, "big talk," and body language 14 ways to walk and talk like a VIP or celebrity 6 ways to sound like an insider in any crowd 7 ways to establish deep subliminal rapport with anyone 9 ways to feed someone's ego (and know when NOT to!) 11 ways to make your phone a powerful communications tool 15 ways to work a party like a politician works a room 7 ways to talk with tigers and not get eaten aliveIn her trademark entertaining and straight-shooting style, Leil gives the techniques catchy names so you'll remember them when you really need them, including: "Rubberneck the Room," "Be a Copyclass," "Come Hither Hands," "Bare Their Hot Button," "The Great Scorecard in the Sky," and "Play the Tombstone Game," for big success in your social life, romance, and business.How to Talk to Anyone, which is an update of her popular book, Talking the Winner's Way (see the 5-star reviews of the latter) is based on solid research about techniques that work!By the way, don't confuse How to Talk to Anyone with one of Leil's previous books, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything. This one is completely different!
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating
Alan Alda - 2017
With his trademark humor and frankness, Alan Alda explains what makes the out-of-the-box techniques he developed after his years as the host of Scientific American Frontiers so effective. This book reveals what it means to be a true communicator, and how we can communicate better, in every aspect of our lives—with our friends, lovers, and families, with our doctors, in business settings, and beyond.
How to Live on 24 Hours a Day
Arnold Bennett - 1908
Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. This timeless classic is one of the first self-help books ever written and was a best-seller in both England and America. It remains as useful today as when it was written, and offers fresh and practical advice on how to make the most of the daily miracle of life.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Marshall B. Rosenberg - 1999
Nonviolent Communication partners practical skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you get what you want peacefully.In this internationally acclaimed text, Marshall Rosenberg offers insightful stories, anecdotes, practical exercises and role-plays that will dramatically change your approach to communication for the better. Discover how the language you use can strengthen your relationships, build trust, prevent conflicts and heal pain. Revolutionary, yet simple, NVC offers you the most effective tools to reduce violence and create peace in your life—one interaction at a time.Over 150,000 copies sold and now available in 20 languages around the world. More than 250,000 people each year from all walks of life are learning these life-changing skills.
You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You're Deluding Yourself
David McRaney - 2011
Whether you’re deciding which smart phone to purchase or which politician to believe, you think you are a rational being whose every decision is based on cool, detached logic, but here’s the truth: You are not so smart. You’re just as deluded as the rest of us--but that’s okay, because being deluded is part of being human. Growing out of David McRaney’s popular blog, You Are Not So Smart reveals that every decision we make, every thought we contemplate, and every emotion we feel comes with a story we tell ourselves to explain them, but often these stories aren’t true. Each short chapter--covering topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency--is like a psychology course with all the boring parts taken out.Bringing together popular science and psychology with humor and wit, You Are Not So Smart is a celebration of our irrational, thoroughly human behavior.