Book Review: If I Understood You Would I Have This Look on My Face?

Between September of 2004 and March of 2011 I worked my way slowly, one class at a time, through an online Bachelor's degree majoring in Communication Studies. The courses I took ranged from courses on Communication Theory and Analysis through the history of Mass Media and even included a couple courses on the Ancient World (which ended up being incredibly useful!).

In the end, a Communication Studies degree showed me over and over again the importance of ensuring that both sides of any message confirm what they have said/heard.  This knowledge has led me to be a better husband/father/friend/librarian (and hopefully blogger), and I think spending any time on understanding how people communicate and relate to each other is time worth spending.

So as you can imagine, when I saw Alan Alda's latest book, If I Understood You Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating, I immediately added it to my hold queue at my local library and looked forward to checking it out.

First off, the book is really readable, Alda does an amazing job of pulling the reader in and keeping them interested throughout, both with personal stories and

Secondly, much of the focus on the book looks at the benefits of better communication in fields such as the sciences, wherein a large number of incredibly smart people doing smart things sometimes have trouble communicating the most important aspects of their work to us regular folk.  The benefits of having at least one communications course in virtually any field of study should not be overlooked.

Finally, Alda makes a really intriguing connection between communication and Improv; showing how skills learned in the practice of improv can help empathize and relate with others and significantly improve your ability at communicating more efficiently and effectively.

A fascinating read and well worth the look.

Book Review: Modern Romance

So let me start by admitting that I'm a big fan of books by comedians; whether learning about American history through Jon Stewart or Nick Offerman, or reading a fun autobiography by Amy Poehler or Tina Fey (which had me laughing so hard I drew uncomfortable stares on the bus - a near-criminal public display up here in Canada), if any comedian I enjoy puts pen to paper, I'm likely to give their efforts a try.

So earlier this week I picked up Aziz Ansari's first book, Modern Romance, expecting a look at the actors life when I was stunned to find out the book was largely focused on the issue of romance and relationships in the era of social media.  Also to be fair, I'm sure most people already knew this, as I would have had I looked into anything about the book or even read the back cover.

Co written by sociologist Eric Klinenberg, the book works as a really great piece of creative non-fiction, is well-researched and includes interviews and references to authors such as Clay Shirky and Sherry Turkle.

The book was a pretty fascinating look at how people are meeting, dating, and marrying each other these days and as a communications studies major, played directly into the stuff I love to read for fun.

This may be my favourite non-fiction book of 2015.