Let's Talk: How to Have Better Conversations

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The book has signposted me to some really interesting new media to check out though with some great examples of interesting conversationalists, so it’s worth a read on that aspect!

In August 2022 he came to Intelligence Squared to discuss his new book Let’s Talk, which explores the evolution of dialogue and the science behind stimulating conversation.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. From ever decreasing face-to-face meetings to echo chambers online, we no longer have the necessary tools to talk to each other. Rather the book is a meandering (and sometimes somewhat self-indulgent) description about why conversation is a lost art (yes, you guessed it… phones/social media/increasingly polarised societies) and why this needs to be reversed. He wants to know what it really means to have a 'great conversation' and, most importantly, how he can teach us to have better interactions in our everyday lives. That’s the argument of Nihal Arthanayake, acclaimed interviewer and broadcaster for BBC Radio 5 Live, who has spent years trying to understand what makes for a great conversation.

He won interviewer of the year for the BBC Radio and Music Awards and his first book is Let's Talk: How to Have Better Conversations. Really enjoyed the writing style, but it felt like this was an autobiography packaged as something else. Very good talking heads (Sutherland, Syed, Hari, Rick Haythornthwaite) and the familiar style where the reader is led by the hand. There's a reason We Are Legion was named Audible's Best Science Fiction Book of 2016: Its irresistibly irreverent wit!Guests from the world's biggest stars to leaders of inner-city gangs have lauded his seemingly innate ability to stimulate positive discussions without the need for confrontation. It is entirely from the heart, an impassioned please for more meaningful conversation amid this era of online squabbling and all too easy animosity. I like that he uses the final chapter to summarise the majority of the key points from his interviewees. He revealed insights from leading authorities in neuroscience as well as from popular figures including Lorraine Kelly, former president of Ireland Mary McAleese, Professor Tanya Byron, Matthew Syed and many more, whom he has interviewed to find out why good conversation has eroded and how we can fix it. P34 [ Johann Hari] - ‘ If you’re interrupted , it takes you on average twenty-three minutes to get back to the same level of focus that you had before you were interrupted .

In each episode you'll follow one person's journey, getting to listen in on their coaching sessions with Selina and following them as she sends them off on a task to try out a new career idea.

He currently presents a daily daytime show on BBC 5 Live, and his unique interviewing style was recently recognised at the BBC Radio and Music Awards where he won Interview of the Year. Listen in as she takes six different people on a career change journey to help them figure out what work they would really love to do and create a plan of how to make that career change happen. I just couldn't bring myself to press that one star button even though I think this is one of the few books that I think might deserve it. It's a worthwhile read but I think it would've been improved by Nihal directly quoting his interviewees more often, rather than telling us what they'd done or said. Think about how this, and how you can make other people feel when you are interacting with them; however brief that connection may be.