Ruby Sisson Library

In our current political climate, it seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone who has a different opinion. Whether you're online, in a classroom, an office, a town hall -- or just hoping to get through a family dinner with a stubborn relative -- dialogue shuts down when perspectives clash. Heated debates often lead to insults and shaming, blocking any possibility of productive discourse. Everyone seems to be on a hair trigger. In...

Communication skills that lead to better dialogue and conversation in the workplace.

The veteran comedian and co-host of "The View" uses her trademark humor to examine the growing disrespect and rudeness in society and discusses how a loss of civility diminishes the quality of life.

"A guide to learning how to communicate with people who have diametrically opposed opinions from you, how to empathize with them, and how to possibly change their minds"--

Are you a good listener? How well do you really know the people around you? A capacity for empathic understanding is hard-wired in our brains, but its full expression involves particular listening skills that are seldom learned through ordinary experience. Through clear explanation, specific examples, and practical exercises, Dr. Miller offers a step-by-step process for developing your skillfulness in empathic listening. With a solid basis in sixty...

Information on how to identify 10 recognizable difficult behaviors and deal successfully with each of them.

"Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, both with his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley's most accomplished short stories to display the full range of his remarkable talent. Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories-heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved,...

"Mia's abuela has left her sunny house with parrots and palm trees to live with Mia and her parents in the city. The night she arrives, Mia tries to share her favorite book with Abuela before they go to sleep and discovers that Abuela can't read the words inside. So while they cook, Mia helps Abuela learn English ("Dough. Masa"), and Mia learns some Spanish too, but it's still hard for Abuela to learn the words she needs to tell Mia all her stories....

"We all know people who seem capable of connecting with almost anyone. They are the ones we turn to for advice, the ones who ask deep questions but also seem to hear what we are trying to say. What do they know about conversation that makes them so special? And what can they tell us about how communication really works? Supercommunicators, Charles Duhigg argues, understand--some by intuition, some by hard-won experience--that there is a science to...