This summary of a book on how to improve conversations doesn't do justice to it but it certainly tries to spread across all the chapters because each one is as good as the previous. The book is written by Professor Anne Curzan who has been teaching English linguistics for several years. She starts out by saying that an average of 16,000 words are spoken by a person in a day, regardless of their gender. And many a times the conversation turns out to be either not communicated properly or not received properly and she makes a case where participants on either side can multitask both listening and speaking in a way that makes the conversation load balanced properly and engaging for both. She points out that conversations where one party does most of the heavy lifting to keep it going, is subject to a lot of factors that cannot always be understood in time by either of the parties so the best that they can do is to not let a topic die and any topic mentioned deserves attention for a possible follow up. With this premise, she brings on a lot of stories, actual conversations, references from researchers, and quite a few demonstrated improvements using the techniques she discusses in her book.

The author points out that conversation doesn't always happen between like-minded people and some differences are well-known. For example, women tend to speak amongst themselves in a cooperative manner, while the men speak among themselves in statements. Women ask twice more questions than men. These differences aside, both men and women are from the same planet and have similar difficulties in making their conversations more effective. She suggests the use of all forms of expressions to make their intentions known and these include such things as non-verbal cues, hand movements, simultaneous talking, back channeling speech acts and many other instruments. She says that manners of speaking such as “you know I have been thinking…”, “ I have been thinking about “, “ on my way to work”, you know with a dragging o, I mean with the dragging n, so with the dragging o and others are all effective conversation starters and endings. She points out that hand movements are helping the brain release some of the thoughts it is trying hard to find language for and can be performed while the speaker is speaking. She doesn't rule out any form of language that helps a person become more engaged in the conversation and elicits the same from the audience. She recognizes the power of storytelling in all forms of conversation whether they are casual or business. She compares stories to lists and suggests that popular software tools make lists easier and popular but advises against it saying that stories are more powerful than lists.

The author also cites both direct and indirect forms of communication and their utilities in various scenarios. She suggests that direct forms of communication can be literal and factual while the indirect play a role and requests and asking a favor. Recognizing the possible differences in the social political cultural and economic standing between the listener and the speaker, she suggests indirect forms of communication to make the conversation more polite. She calls out variations of conversations in the form of face threatening attacks, damages to the public impression, imposing or intruding into the personal space of others and how to respond to these. Some techniques involve leveling the field with some words to show camaraderie, hedging against possible refusal, understanding or stating the premises and it’s limitations, showing politeness and apologizing for imposing into the area of possible discomfort.

On the topic of ingratiating oneself to another for business or social reasons, she provides plenty of examples from subtle to clear, that make it more heartfelt not perfunctory. Likewise, she explains how to accept compliments with a full range of surprise, graceful acceptance, self-deprecation, deflection, and carefulness to resume the more substantial matter at hand. Towards the end of this book, the examples become lengthier and more meaningful in context. One cannot help but close the book with a feeling of being mindful to be more honest and engaging the next time one has an important conversation.