63 books like An Effort to Understand

By David Murray,

Here are 63 books that An Effort to Understand fans have personally recommended if you like An Effort to Understand. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate

Tim Muehlhoff Author Of Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church

From my list on to avoid an argument with someone close.

Why am I passionate about this?

For the past 30 years I’ve focused on one question: Can individuals who have deep differences come together to cultivate common ground, compassion, and civility? Even with deep differences can we still engage in productive conversations? As an author, professor, and co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project my attempt to answer this question continues. The books I’ve listed have given guidance to not only come up with an answer but more importantly, live it out with those close to me. To hear me put theory into practice, listen to my Winsome Conviction podcast (with co-host Rick Langer) which tackles divisive issues with the hope of bringing diverse people together to talk.  

Tim's book list on to avoid an argument with someone close

Tim Muehlhoff Why did Tim love this book?

Even if you have the best intentions heading into a conversation, powerful emotions can easily derail the entire interaction. You headed in wanting to stay calm, but something your spouse, co-worker, or fellow church member said triggered your hot button surfacing powerful emotions. Soon, voices are raised and feelings are hurt. How do you manage powerful emotions when they surface? If you’ve never read a book by the creators of the Harvard Negotiation Project—the leading experts in mediation—this is a must-read by experts who have had to manage the most difficult and potentially explosive conversations imaginable. They remind us that emotions are “powerful, always present, and hard to handle.” Yet, the authors offer practical ways to recognize the emotions you have heading into a conversation with someone you care about and how to deal with them once they surface. 

By Roger Fisher, Daniel Shapiro,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Beyond Reason as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Whether you are negotiating a business contract or curfew with your teenager, emotions can get you in trouble. They also can help you get what you want. This book shows you how. Telling a negotiator 'Don't get emotional' is nonsense. We all have emotions of some kind - all the time - and these emotions deeply inform both what we want and how we go about getting it. In "Getting to Yes", master negotiator Roger Fisher helped readers understand the mechanics of everyday agreements and how to reach them while preserving respect and self-worth. Now, in "Beyond Reason", he and…


Book cover of Argument Culture Moving From Debate to Dialogue

Stuart Hanscomb Author Of Critical Thinking: The Basics

From my list on interpersonal communication and influence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an academic at the University of Glasgow with a background in philosophy and psychology. My approach to critical thinking is broad and informed by several other teaching and research interests: emotional intelligence, the psychology of influence, interpersonal communication, and virtue ethics. Motivating much of what I do is the question: How are we to live well? With respect to critical thinking I don’t just deal with the nature and structure of arguments, but also with the role they play in constructive dialogues, and how poor reasoning is linked to psychological biases and the absence of certain virtues. The books I have chosen here are representative of these concerns.

Stuart's book list on interpersonal communication and influence

Stuart Hanscomb Why did Stuart love this book?

I teach and write on critical thinking, and a branch of this discipline is interested in the role of dialogue in the process of truth-seeking. Discovering this book was huge for me because it discusses in depth so many of the impediments to constructive dialogue that I (and most of us) have encountered. Its subject is the motivational and cultural bases of disagreements and how we value and manage them, and there are of course some sound recommendations for how we can do better by shifting from what has become an automatic adversarial approach to one of ‘meaningful dialogue’.

By Deborah Tannen,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Argument Culture Moving From Debate to Dialogue as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In her number one bestseller, You Just Don't Understand, Deborah Tannen showed why talking to someone of the other sex can be like talking to someone from another world. Her bestseller Talking from 9 to 5 did for workplace communication what You Just Don't Understand did for personal relationships. Now Tannen is back with another groundbreaking book, this time widening her lens to examine the way we communicate in public--in the media, in politics, in our courtrooms and classrooms--once again letting us see in a new way forces that have been powerfully shaping our lives.
        The Argument Culture is about…


Book cover of Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World

Tim Muehlhoff Author Of Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church

From my list on to avoid an argument with someone close.

Why am I passionate about this?

For the past 30 years I’ve focused on one question: Can individuals who have deep differences come together to cultivate common ground, compassion, and civility? Even with deep differences can we still engage in productive conversations? As an author, professor, and co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project my attempt to answer this question continues. The books I’ve listed have given guidance to not only come up with an answer but more importantly, live it out with those close to me. To hear me put theory into practice, listen to my Winsome Conviction podcast (with co-host Rick Langer) which tackles divisive issues with the hope of bringing diverse people together to talk.  

Tim's book list on to avoid an argument with someone close

Tim Muehlhoff Why did Tim love this book?

In today’s often argumentative world, we need someone who not only understands what true empathy and civility are, but also practices it. I can think of no greater ambassador of compassion and civility than this author. Not only does this book give a wonderful vision of empathy, perspective-taking, and caring for the stories of others, but it is filled with Mouw’s attempt to put those virtues into practice. He seeks out those that disagree with him and models what humility and love look like to be embodied.  

By Richard J. Mouw,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Uncommon Decency as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Can Christians act like Christians even when they disagree? In these wild and diverse times, right and left battle over the airwaves, prolifers square off against prochoicers, gay liberationists confront champions of the traditional family, artists and legislators tangle, even Christians fight other Christians whose doctrines aren't "just so."
Richard Mouw has been actively forging a model of Christian civil conversation with those we might disagree with-atheists, Muslims, gay activists and more. He is concerned that, too often, Christians have contributed more to the problem than to the solution. But he recognizes-from his dialogues with those from many perspectives-that it's…


Book cover of Communicating with Grace and Virtue: Learning to Listen, Speak, Text, and Interact as a Christian

Tim Muehlhoff Author Of Winsome Conviction: Disagreeing Without Dividing the Church

From my list on to avoid an argument with someone close.

Why am I passionate about this?

For the past 30 years I’ve focused on one question: Can individuals who have deep differences come together to cultivate common ground, compassion, and civility? Even with deep differences can we still engage in productive conversations? As an author, professor, and co-director of the Winsome Conviction Project my attempt to answer this question continues. The books I’ve listed have given guidance to not only come up with an answer but more importantly, live it out with those close to me. To hear me put theory into practice, listen to my Winsome Conviction podcast (with co-host Rick Langer) which tackles divisive issues with the hope of bringing diverse people together to talk.  

Tim's book list on to avoid an argument with someone close

Tim Muehlhoff Why did Tim love this book?

In discussing difficult issues with those close to us we all know the importance of listening, empathy, and the power of stories. However, is it possible to do this when communicating via text, email, or Facebook?  What Schultze has taught me is how to utilize these communication skills not only in face-to-face encounters but also when discussing issues via social media. How can I discern which media platform is best suited for sharing my opinions or perspective on potentially divisive issues? While social media is often cast as a source of our collective incivility, this book gives hope that it can also be part of the solution. While written for Christian communicators, the principles he shares are applicable to anyone interested in fostering productive conversations either in person or via social media.  

By Quentin J. Schultze,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Communicating with Grace and Virtue as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Communications expert Quentin Schultze offers an engaging and practical guide to help Christians interact effectively at home, work, church, school, and beyond. Based on solid biblical principles and drawn from Schultze's own remarkable experiences, this book shows how to practice "servant communication" for a rich and rewarding life. Topics include how to overcome common mistakes, be a more grateful and virtuous communicator, tell stories effectively, reduce conflicts, overcome fears, and communicate well in a high-tech world. Helpful sidebars and text boxes are included.


Book cover of The Captive Sea: Slavery, Communication, and Commerce in Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean

Brian Catlos Author Of Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors: Faith, Power, and Violence in the Age of Crusade and Jihad

From my list on the multi-religious Mediterranean.

Why am I passionate about this?

Having lived in North America, Europe, and the Middle East, and visited many, many more countries, I am a traveler first and foremost. I travel because I like getting to know different types of people and seeing how they live and how they think about the world and about their place in it. As a historian, I can travel back in time to places even more exotic than one can visit today. My favorite place is the Mediterranean world in the Middle Ages – an exciting environment where Christians, Muslims, and Jews from Africa, Europe, and Asia, came together sometimes in conflict, but as often as not in collaboration or friendship.

Brian's book list on the multi-religious Mediterranean

Brian Catlos Why did Brian love this book?

Another intimate view of Mediterranean social history, The Captive Sea: brings to light the way networks of captivity and ransom operating between Hapsburg Spain, Ottoman Algiers, Morocco, and beyond helped shape the Mediterranean as an integrated region in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Hershenzon tracks the interactions of various agents involved in the ransom economy— imperial bureaucrats, clergy, merchants, diplomats, renegades.

Combining a wide-angle frame of geopolitics with the particular cases registered in letters, petitions, Inquisition reports, and other archival sources, he reconstructs some remarkable stories that illustrate the complexity of networks of interaction and circulation: stories of individual captives like Fatima, daughter of an Algerian Janissary (slave soldier), or the connected histories of captives (in some cases of quite modest social station) from both sides of the religious divide, repatriated through the correspondence of wives or mothers back home. 

By Daniel Hershenzon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Captive Sea as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Captive Sea, Daniel Hershenzon explores the entangled histories of Muslim and Christian captives-and, by extension, of the Spanish Empire, Ottoman Algiers, and Morocco-in the seventeenth century to argue that piracy, captivity, and redemption helped shape the Mediterranean as an integrated region at the social, political, and economic levels. Despite their confessional differences, the lives of captives and captors alike were connected in a political economy of ransom and communication networks shaped by Spanish, Ottoman, and Moroccan rulers; ecclesiastic institutions; Jewish, Muslim, and Christian intermediaries; and the captives themselves, as well as their kin.
Hershenzon offers both a comprehensive…


Book cover of Drawn Together

Jyoti Rajan Gopal Author Of American Desi

From my list on children figuring out their place in the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

As someone straddling multiple cultures, growing up everywhere and belonging nowhere, I know what it feels like to not fit in. I know what it feels like to want to hide parts of yourself so you can fit in. And so, as a picture book writer and a Kindergarten teacher, I'm always looking for books that share stories about children trying to figure out their place in the world. I didn't have those books growing up. What a difference that would have made in my own journey. The books that I picked are unique in the way they portray belonging. I hope you love these gems as much as I do!

Jyoti's book list on children figuring out their place in the world

Jyoti Rajan Gopal Why did Jyoti love this book?

A young boy and his grandfather are thrown together for the afternoon. They are both lost for words—the grandfather does not speak English and the boy does not speak Thai. What I love about this book is how the spare text in this story manages to speak volumes and the gorgeous, evocative illustrations illuminate their relationship. The language gap and culture gap seems to loom between them. And yet…. unexpectedly, a sketchbook ignites a silent conversation as the two draw their way to a new understanding of and connection to each other. It’s a heartfelt storyso relatablethat beautifully depicts an age-old immigrant experience, the sometimes painful cultural alienation between older and younger generations.

By Minh Lê, Dan Santat (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Drawn Together as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, and 5.

What is this book about?

This acclaimed picture book from two award-winning creators about connecting across generational and language differences shows that sometimes you don't need words to find common ground.

When a young boy visits his grandfather, their lack of a common language leads to confusion, frustration, and silence. But as they sit down to draw together, something magical happens -- with a shared love of art and storytelling, the two form a bond that goes beyond words.

With spare text by Minh Lê and luminous illustrations by Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat, this stirring story about reaching across barriers will be cherished for years…


Book cover of Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together

Lawrence E. Susskind Author Of Good for You, Great for Me: Finding the Trading Zone and Winning at Win-Win Negotiation

From my list on negotiating for mutual advantage.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Professor at MIT and co-founder of both the inter-university Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the not-for-profit Consensus Building Institute that provides help in resolving some of the most complex resource management disputes around the world. I have been teaching negotiation and dispute resolution, doing research about the circumstances under which various negotiation strategies do and don’t work, and offering online training for more than four decades. Given the many negotiations I've observed, I’m convinced that negotiating for mutual advantage is the way to go -- avoid unnecessary conflict, get what you want in all kinds of negotiating situations, and walk away with good working relationships and a solid reputation.

Lawrence's book list on negotiating for mutual advantage

Lawrence E. Susskind Why did Lawrence love this book?

Bill Isaacs offers a pioneering approach to communicating in business and in life. His book starts with the assumption that people don’t know how to talk in a way that will make it easier for them to work together with others to solve shared problems. His company, DIAlogos, has organized dialogues in a wide variety of public and private settings. In the book, his discussion of “the architecture of the invisible” makes clear why better communication begins with listening, respect, suspending our own opinions, and finding our voice. I’m particularly taken with his discussion of how we can “cultivate organizational and system dialogue.” He also has some important ideas about how we can return to civility in our public discourse in the current time when “Red” and “Blue” have forgotten how to communicate at all. 

By William Isaacs,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dialogue as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dialogue provides practical guidelines for one of the essential elements of true partnership--learning how to talk together in honest and effective ways. Reveals how problems between managers and employees, and between companies or divisions within a larger corporation, stem from an inability to conduct a successful dialogue.


Book cover of The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics

Alejandra Bronfman Author Of Isles of Noise: Sonic Media in the Caribbean

From my list on sound and why you should care about it.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been doing research in the Caribbean for twenty-five years. The region is diverse and magnificent. Caribbean people have sought creative solutions for racial inequality, climate and sustainability, media literacy and information, women’s and family issues. The transnational connections with the US are complex and wide-ranging, and knowing more about this region is an urgent matter. I work to understand how sound and media work because they structure our reality in important ways. Listening as a way of approaching relationships in work and play is key to our survival. So is understanding how media works, where we get our information from, and how to tell what’s relevant, significant, and true, and what is not. 

Alejandra's book list on sound and why you should care about it

Alejandra Bronfman Why did Alejandra love this book?

Cassette tapes of Muslim sermons played by taxi drivers in Cairo set the stage for this profound investigation of the intersection of sound, spiritualism, and technology. The tapes, Hirschkind argues, are not mechanisms for social control as much as jumping-off points for Muslims to find their way towards ethical self-improvement. 

By Charles Hirschkind,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ethical Soundscape as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Charles Hirschkind's unique study explores how a popular Islamic media form--the cassette sermon--has profoundly transformed the political geography of the Middle East over the last three decades. An essential aspect of what is now called the Islamic Revival, the cassette sermon has become omnipresent in most Middle Eastern cities, punctuating the daily routines of many men and women. Hirschkind shows how sermon tapes have provided one of the means by which Islamic ethical traditions have been recalibrated to a modern political and technological order--to its noise and forms of pleasure and boredom, but also to its political incitements and call…


Book cover of Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the Afronet to Black Lives Matter

Joanne McNeil Author Of Lurking: How a Person Became a User

From my list on the origins of the tech industry.

Why am I passionate about this?

Joanne McNeil has written about internet culture for over fifteen years. Her book considers the development of the internet from a user's perspective since the launch of the World Wide Web. Her interest in digital technology spans from the culture that enabled the founding of major companies in Silicon Valley to their reception in broader culture.

Joanne's book list on the origins of the tech industry

Joanne McNeil Why did Joanne love this book?

Black software, McIlwain writes, “refers to the programs we desire and design computers to run. It refers to who designs the program, for what purposes, and what or who becomes its object and data.” The book is a much needed examination of the role that Black entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, and users contributed in building the internet.

By Charlton D. McIlwain,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Software as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Activists, pundits, politicians, and the press frequently proclaim today's digitally mediated racial justice activism the new civil rights movement. As Charlton D. McIlwain shows in this book, the story of racial justice movement organizing online is much longer and varied than most people know. In fact, it spans nearly five decades and involves a varied group of engineers, entrepreneurs, hobbyists, journalists, and activists. But this is a history that is virtually
unknown even in our current age of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Black Lives Matter.

Beginning with the simultaneous rise of civil rights and computer revolutions in the 1960s, McIlwain,…


Book cover of The Instruction of Imagination: Language as a Social Communication Technology

Michael C. Corballis Author Of Adventures of a Psychologist: Reflections on What Made Up the Mind

From my list on the mind (how it works and where it came from).

Why am I passionate about this?

Michael Corballis is a psychologist and brain scientist. His interests lie in how the mind works, how it maps onto the brain, and how it evolved. Much of his work is published in books and scientific articles, but he has also written books aimed at a general readership. These include Pieces of Mind, The Lopsided Ape, The Recursive Mind, The Wandering Mind, and The Truth about Language.

Michael's book list on the mind (how it works and where it came from)

Michael C. Corballis Why did Michael love this book?

For more than half a century, the science and philosophy of language have been dominated by Noam Chomsky, who holds that language depends on an innate, uniquely human capacity to generate complex structures. In this view, language is an aspect of thought, and communication is of little interest or relevance. In his own words, Daniel Dor “turns Chomsky on his head,” so that communication itself becomes the focus. Language is a means of expression, collectively invented by our ancient forebears, to go where the senses do not go—into our minds. This book should help transform our understanding of language as a practical technology rather than a biological oddity.

By Daniel Dor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Instruction of Imagination as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The book suggests a new perspective on the essence of human language. This enormous achievement of our species is best characterized as a communication technology - not unlike the social media on the Net today - that was collectively invented by ancient humans for a very particular communicative function: the instruction of imagination. All other systems of communication in the biological world target the interlocutors' senses; language allows speakers to
systematically instruct their interlocutors in the process of imagining the intended meaning - instead of directly experiencing it. This revolutionary function has changed human life forever, and in the book…


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