A love letter to odd humour, Awkward Pause is a mix of joy and sorrow, both soft and sharp. The book includes over 50 comics, which range in topic from mental health to time travel, murder, and butts. Absurd and strange in ways that will warm even the coldest of hearts.

Top consultant Sarah Beaulieu offers a five-part framework that enables employees to have difficult but necessary conversations about sexual harassment and violence and develop new, better ways of working together. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, employees and leaders are struggling with how to respond to the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Most approaches simply emphasize knowing and complying with existing laws. But people need more than lists of dos and don'ts—they need to learn how to navigate this uncertain, emotionally charged terrain. Sarah Beaulieu provides a new skills-based approach to addressing sexual harassment prevention and response in the workplace, including using underdeveloped skills like empathy, situational awareness, boundary setting, and intervention. Beaulieu outlines a five-part framework for having conversations about sexual harassment: Know the Facts; Feel Uncomfortable; Get Curious, Not Furious; See the Whole Picture; and Embrace Practical Questions. By embracing these conversations, we can break the cycle of avoidance and silence that makes our lives and workplaces feel volatile and unsafe. Grounded in storytelling, humor, and dozens of real-life scenarios, this book introduces the idea of uncomfortable conversation as the core skill required to enable everyone to bring their full talent and contributions to safe and respectful workplaces.

Examines the ways that embracing socially awkward situations, even when they lead to embarrassment and self-conciousness, also provide the opportunity to test oneself and to recognize how people are connected to each other.

Washington Post columnist Alexandra Petri turns her satirical eye on her own life in this hilarious new memoir... Most twentysomethings spend a lot of time avoiding awkwardness. Not Alexandra Petri. Afraid of rejection? Alexandra Petri has auditioned for America’s Next Top Model. Afraid of looking like an idiot? Alexandra Petri lost Jeopardy! by answering “Who is that dude?” on national TV. Afraid of bad jokes? Alexandra Petri won an international pun championship. Petri has been a debutante, reenacted the Civil War, and fended off suitors at a Star Wars convention while wearing a Jabba the Hutt suit. One time, she let some cult members she met on the street baptize her, just to be polite. She’s a connoisseur of the kind of awkwardness that most people spend whole lifetimes trying to avoid. If John Hodgman and Amy Sedaris had a baby…they would never let Petri babysit it. But Petri is here to tell you: Everything you fear is not so bad. Trust her. She’s tried it. And in the course of her misadventures, she’s learned that there are worse things out there than awkwardness—and that interesting things start to happen when you stop caring what people think.

Professor Leopold Nettles, the hero of Largo Desolato, is the author of a book that contains a troublesome paragraph laying him open to arrest on charges of disturbing the intellectual peace. Pressed by the government to recant, Nettles is tortured by internal demons as well as external ones. Vaclav Havel has created a vivid and terrifying portrait of the writer in the totalitarian state that is as real and immediate as today s headlines."

This book will likely irritate every reader at some point. One chapter is so bold it intones the good of a mother who kills her children. The chapter does not say the murderous mother was a good woman, or that she did a good thing; it doesn’t say that her actions should be without penalty or consequence. The chapter suggests, basically, in a metaphoric and anecdotal ending, that the mother loves the ones she killed. PsychoBabbleJabble is full of these kinds of challenges; this book is written and designed to tackle human judgment. My work as a therapist, a clinician, and as a helper in different settings, and in different states even (I am licensed in Florida, the District of Columbia, and Missouri), plus with my hypnosis training, all of these play a role in this writing. The reader will see and experience the maneuvering of words, each used to explain and help promote understanding in how people’s judgments are formed. Many judgments are those that I like to call ‘terminal thoughts.’ For some reason or another, certain thoughts are seemingly non-negotiable to the holder of them. With terminal thoughts in mind (we all have them), I’m able to, using my writing, go with the reader using their various lines of thinking, as if their beliefs are absolutely true. Then, near each chapter ending, I include an alternative and new perspective, where a question about the once absolute belief is now wedged toward and in between a different belief. ‘Wedged,’ meaning a small detail of alternative thought is strategically placed juxtaposition to a terminal thought, that the reader once used (or uses still, maybe) to hold up a rationale supporting ‘truth.’ By each chapters end, the belief is jolted loose a tiny bit, hopefully. It is in that jolting, where a belief becomes finally questioned and questionable. This text contains my best writing and some of my best clinical recall. All of my training is included in some way in every part of this text; the hypnosis training kicks my writing up a notch. Here, using people’s RIGHTNESS as an ally in shaping a new belief, I contradict the old truth while valuing it, in key and passionate areas of what might be called life and the people that make it so. That’s what I’d say this book hopes to do – to jolt loose, just a little bit those absolute judgments we as humans may unknowingly, without ill intent, and possibly mistakenly hold as settled.

When was the last time you listened to someone, or someone really listened to you? "If you’re like most people, you don’t listen as often or as well as you’d like. There’s no one better qualified than a talented journalist to introduce you to the right mindset and skillset—and this book does it with science and humor." -Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take **Hand picked by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, and Daniel Pink for Next Big Ideas Club** "An essential book for our times." -Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone At work, we’re taught to lead the conversation. On social media, we shape our personal narratives. At parties, we talk over one another. So do our politicians. We’re not listening. And no one is listening to us. Despite living in a world where technology allows constant digital communication and opportunities to connect, it seems no one is really listening or even knows how. And it’s making us lonelier, more isolated, and less tolerant than ever before. A listener by trade, New York Times contributor Kate Murphy wanted to know how we got here. In this always illuminating and often humorous deep dive, Murphy explains why we’re not listening, what it’s doing to us, and how we can reverse the trend. She makes accessible the psychology, neuroscience, and sociology of listening while also introducing us to some of the best listeners out there (including a CIA agent, focus group moderator, bartender, radio producer, and top furniture salesman). Equal parts cultural observation, scientific exploration, and rousing call to action that's full of practical advice, You're Not Listening is to listening what Susan Cain's Quiet was to introversion. It’s time to stop talking and start listening.

A must-have step-by-step guide on what to do (and what NOT to do) while dating featuring clear instructions and helpful scripts so you can deal with any difficult circumstance in every aspect of your love life. How do you deal with dating apps, that commitment question, or if you want kids but they don't? Do This, Not That: Dating is here to help with all your relationship situations. Romantic relationships can be full of challenging situations and emotions, and no matter how passionate, frustrated, excited, or downright angry you feel, it’s important for you to communicate and find a solution that works for both you and your partner. Whether you’re struggling to find the right words or simply aren’t sure how to approach a topic, this book will give you the tools you need to move forward productively…or learn when to let go and move on. In Do This, Not That: Dating, you’ll find eighty common relationship issues that cover everything from your first date to your first fight—and beyond. For each situation, you’ll discover exactly what to do and what to avoid, then learn exactly how to make it happen. Find tips to reframe your thinking, simple scripts to help you figure out what to say, and even advice on your next steps depending on your initial conversation. This book is your must-have guide to any unexpected situation relationships throw your way.