These FREE Books Will Help You Create Meaningful Connections

July 4 2022
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Off the Shelf is pleased to welcome Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp to the blog today to share a special message about two books, HIGH CONFLICT by Amanda Ripley and LET’S TALK ABOUT HARD THINGS by Anna Sale, that he feels are vital to having more productive conversations about tough topics. He believes these books are so important, in fact, that Simon & Schuster is actually giving them away for FREE in eBook and audio download formats to anyone who wants them this month. But we’ll let him take it from here…

Normally, book publishers do not like to give books away. But we at Simon & Schuster feel so strongly about what these books can do for all of us, as individuals and as citizens, that we want to make them freely available to all Americans for one month, as eBooks and digital audiobooks

Both of these books are about how we communicate with each other–how we get past our disagreements and have better, more productive, and more satisfying conversations. According to the latest polling, a majority of Americans recognize that we are divided, and that the divisions seem to be growing wider and more acrimonious. These books both offer insight into mediation, understanding, and maybe even reconciliation. 

I hope you’ll read these books. I hope you’ll tell others to read them as well. I am certain that they will enrich your approach to difficult conversations. Perhaps we if we all get a little better at having those difficult conversations, we’ll begin to find more common ground.

Offer ends July 31, 2022. Available in the U.S. and Canada only.

High Conflict
by Amanda Ripley

Since we published HIGH CONFLICT, the book has been adopted by numerous groups and organizations seeking to solve conflicts. A library in Vermont used it to debate school choice. A divorce mediator uses it with his clients. A theater company used it to defuse tension between a director and the board. A former Navy captain gives it to retiring SEALS as they transition to civilian life. A grandmother in Sausalito began leaving copies on a public bus for strangers to pick up and read. Amanda Ripley has even been asked to speak to members of Congress, and a prominent official within the Capitol building has been handing it out to representatives, though it’s clear that a lot more of them still need to read it. 

From HIGH CONFLICT, I learned how to “go to the balcony,” to view the conflict you are having with detachment, as if you were watching it from the balcony of a theater and you are seeing yourself as a participant on the stage, interacting with others. HIGH CONFLICT shows how openness and curiosity are often the best ways of transcending conflict, and how there is no escaping conflict in our lives, no matter how much we might want to–that conflict is necessary to help us grow.

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High Conflict
Amanda Ripley

When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over.

That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people.

High conflict is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority, and everything we do to try to end the conflict, usually makes it worse. Eventually, we can start to mimic the behavior of our adversaries, harming what we hold most dear.

In this “compulsively readable” (Evan Osnos, National Book Award-winning author) book, New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free.

Our journey begins in California, where a world-renowned conflict expert struggles to extract himself from a political feud. Then we meet a Chicago gang leader who dedicates his life to a vendetta—only to realize, years later, that the story he’d told himself about the conflict was not quite true. Next, we travel to Colombia, to find out whether thousands of people can be nudged out of high conflict at scale. Finally, we return to America to see what happens when a group of liberal Manhattan Jews and conservative Michigan corrections officers choose to stay in each other’s homes in order to understand one another better, even as they continue to disagree.

All these people, in dramatically different situations, were drawn into high conflict by similar forces, including conflict entrepreneurs, humiliation, and false binaries. But ultimately, all of them found ways to transform high conflict into good conflict, the kind that made them better people. They rehumanized and recatego­rized their opponents, and they revived curiosity and wonder, even as they continued to fight for what they knew was right.

People do escape high conflict. Individuals—even entire communities—can short-circuit the feedback loops of outrage and blame, if they want to. This is an “insightful and enthralling” (The New York Times Book Review) book—and a mind-opening new way to think about conflict that will transform how we move through the world.

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These FREE Books Will Help You Create Meaningful Connections

By Jonathan Karp | July 4, 2022

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Let's Talk About Hard Things
by Anna Sale

Therapist and bestselling author Lori Gottlieb said, “In LET'S TALK ABOUT HARD THINGS, Anna Sale brings us fascinating conversations that feel both intensely personal and widely universal, then shows us how to start having them in our own lives. You will laugh, cry, nod in recognition, and by the end, feel that no topic is off limits when it comes to creating meaningful connection. I want to give a copy of this book to every family member, friend, and therapy patient I see.”

From LET'S TALK ABOUT HARD THINGS, I learned that if you’re not agreeing with someone, you’re probably not understanding their context, and you have to actively and respectfully seek to understand that individuals’ personal history and context–why they feel and think the way they do. 

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Let's Talk About Hard Things
Anna Sale

From the host of the popular WNYC podcast Death, Sex, & Money, Let’s Talk About Hard Things is “like a good conversation with a friend” (The New Yorker) where “no topic is off-limits when it comes to creating meaningful connection” (Lori Gottlieb, author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone).

Anna Sale wants you to have that conversation. You know the one. The one that you’ve been avoiding or putting off, maybe for years. The one that you’ve thought “they’ll never understand” or “do I really want to bring that up?” or “it’s not going to go well, so why even try?”

Sale is the founder and host of WNYC’s popular, award-winning podcast Death, Sex, & Money or as the New York Times dubbed her “a therapist at happy hour.” She and her guests have direct and thought-provoking conversations, discussing topics that most of us are too squeamish, polite, or nervous to bring up. But Sale argues that we all experience these hard things, and by not talking to one another, we cut ourselves off, leading us to feel isolated and disconnected from people who can help us most.

In Let’s Talk About Hard Things, Sale uses the best of what she’s learned from her podcast to reveal that when we dare to talk about hard things, we learn about ourselves, others, and the world that we make together. Diving into five of the most fraught conversation topics—death, sex, money, family, and identity—she moves between memoir, fascinating snapshots of a variety of Americans opening up about their lives, and expert opinions to show why having tough conversations is important and how to do them in a thoughtful and generous way. She uncovers that listening may be the most important part of a tough conversation, that the end goal should be understanding without the pressure of reconciliation, and that there are some things that words can’t fix (and why that’s actually okay).

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These FREE Books Will Help You Create Meaningful Connections

By Jonathan Karp | July 4, 2022

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