Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, by Alison Wood Brooks

Learn how to get more out of your conversations with this indispensable guide

​Everyone knows how to talk, right? Wrong, according to Harvard Professor Alison Wood Brooks. We’re ill prepared with topics to discuss, don’t ask enough questions to maintain momentum and fail to see conversation as a way to engage and have fun. Professor Brooks backs up her guidelines for good conversation with rigorous science. Many of her findings may surprise you. 

For example, one section of the book discusses the importance of apologising, even for things you didn’t do. Brooks cites a study where participants asked complete strangers if they could borrow their mobile phone to make a call. Only 9% of those asked cooperated. But when the study was performed on a rainy day, and participants apologised for the rain, 47% of people offered their phones when asked. 

Other research shows that, despite our aversion to sounding intrusive or overly familiar, asking directly personal questions are for the most part well received. They demonstrate a strong interest in people, and so recipients are almost flattered at the attention. 

Not all conversations are good, however. Some are hostile, or can quickly escalate. In a particularly useful chapter, Brooks guides the reader through the minefield of disagreement.and conflict. By listening and acknowledging grievances, the way can be smoothed to air an opposing point of view or opinion. Research shows that this method of discourse makes an opponent more amenable to what you have to say. 

To make the book’s lessons easier to remember, Brooks smartly distillates her message into four main points:

T. Topics. Research things to talk about.
A. Asking questions
L. Levity. Finding the fun in conversation.
K. Kindness. Hear out what people have to say and give them space.

Written in cheerful, companionable prose, this guide to talking offers vital tips not only for making good conversation, but for also building strong relationships. A must read.

Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, by Alison Wood Brooks. Penguin Books. $26.99

JUNE 2026

The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout

A middle-aged school teacher struggling with life finds himself not waving but drowning

​Artie Dam is a much liked teacher and member of his community. He is married to Evie, who works as a therapist. She is more laconic and laid back, often giving questionable advice to her clients. They have a son, Rob, who was involved in a tragic accident that killed his girlfriend. It’s never spoken, but it is implied his negligence could be responsible. Artie is going through a period where it feels the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He also feels his country is on the wrong track, with the election of Donald Trump as president. In short, he’s not coping. Not only that, many people around him, friends and colleagues, are not coping either.

Into this dark and foreboding atmosphere a bomb is dropped by his son. He has discovered a family secret that threatens to blow them apart. With his mental health already perilously close to the edge, Artie must do his best to keep everything together, even when it seems that not only his family, but the whole country is falling apart. 

The Things We Never Say is the eleventh novel from American novelist Elizabeth Strout. It’s a concisely written portrait of small town America, but one that reflects a larger national mood. The novel simmers with a terrible despair, occasionally relieved with flashes of humour and warm humanity. Strout has one character, the simple yet pure-of-heart Rhonda Lazarre, a victim of classroom bullying, represent the noble yet fragile values of protecting the weak and always seeing the best in everyone. Her portrayal gives grounds for hope that decency and grace are still possible in a world filled with indifferent cruelty.

A psychologically rich look at everyday lives of quiet desperation.

The Things We Never Say, by Elizabeth Strout. Published by Viking. $35

JUNE 2026

Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips

The life of a West Indian migrant is explored in this all-too-human novel.

It’s the 1960s, London. West Indian man Victor Johnson is sailing on a boat from St Kitts, a Caribbean island. He’s leaving behind a girlfriend, Lorna, in the hope of making something of himself in England. When he arrives he finds work in a pub. The owner, who can’t be bothered inquiring into his real name, calls Victor “Lucky”. At the pub he meets all sorts of characters, most notably Peter Feldman, an unscrupulous landlord. Peter has an interesting backstory too, a German-Jewish war refugee, he has lost his home and parents. Victor starts work with Peter as a rent collector, chosen for the job because his boss thinks he will have a better chance of extracting money from fellow West Indian migrants who tenant his substandard properties. While working for Peter he takes up with Ruth, a white working class girl who had to give up her daughter for adoption. The two set up a home together of sorts, but the relationship is plagued with challenges and insecurities. Despite all of Victor’s difficulties, he does experience a degree of success as a journalist, writing up articles on the West Indian migrant experience.

Caryl Phillips is an award winning Kittian-British writer who has published plays, essay collections and novels since the early 1980s. Another Man in the Street, his latest novel, addresses issues of class and race in England from the 1960s up to today. The novel is written from many perspectives and intimately fleshes out the experiences of working class and coloured people, the prejudices they face, and how this shapes not only their destiny, but how they see themselves. Victor is presented as a deeply flawed man, as are the other characters, including his girlfriend Ruth and former boss Peter. All three have a great degree of self-awareness about their limitations, which makes their portraits all the more painful and filled with pathos. Ruth constantly tries to re-imagine her life, torturing herself with what-ifs, while her daughter treats her like a moral outcast. In a harrowing chapter Peter ends up as a doorman in a New York apartment building, routinely humiliated by the entitled residents. And finally, Victor is haunted by regrettable scenes from his life.

Difficult subject matter sensitively handled in a tightly written narrative about broken people. For readers of Elizabeth Strout and Claire Keegan.

Another Man in the Street, by Caryl Phillips. Published by Bloomsbury. $22.99

The Lost Soldiers, by Andrey Kurkov

Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov returns with a new Kyiv mystery.

Kyiv, 1919. It’s a time of great political instability. Only a year ago the entire Russian royal family had been shot. The Red Army is in control, but the White Army and anarchists are lurking in the background. Everything is in flux and anyone could be swept into power at any moment. Against this tumultuous background, humble police investigator Samson Kolechko works to solve the mysterious case of twenty-eight Red Army soldiers who have gone missing at the Halystka bathhouse, their clothing left behind. It’’s a surreal case, with many strange characters and bizarre twists. While Samson works in earnest to solve the mystery, he must also negotiate a maze-like underworld filled with corruption and nepotism. There is also the dreaded Cheka - secret police - who are keeping an eye on Samson’s activities.

The Lost Soldiers is the third installment of celebrated Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov’s Kyiv Mysteries. The novel has wonderfully earthy descriptions of people, streetlife and Slavic food, bringing the Kyiv of a hundred years ago vibrantly to life. Kurkov mixes these gritty aspects with many humorous, almost absurdist elements, giving the story a bittersweet feel. We know Samson walks a perilous tightrope, with danger always nearby, yet the comic tone lightens this emotional burden. Deeply satisfying literary fiction.

The Lost Soldiers, by Andrey Kurkov. Published by MacLehose Press. $34.99

JUNE 2026

Bonfire of the Murdochs, by Gabriel Sherman

An excoriating portrait of a very unhappy family.

​Rupert Murdoch built a global media empire with far reaching political and cultural influence from his father’s inheritance. He intended to make Keith Murdoch proud and achieved extraordinary wealth and power. The question of who would eventually inherit and lead the Murdoch family empire was one that would fester among three key siblings - Lachlan, Elisabeth and James. (Prudence, from an earlier marriage with Patricia Booker, showed no interest in the family business, and two daughters with Wendi Deng, Grace and Chloe, were kept at arm’s length.)

Bonfire of the Murdochs is a riveting drama of how a powerful father pits his three children against each other. Lachlan, Elisabeth and James all try to prove their worth to a ruthlessly cold, calculating man who sees everyone as disposable. The betrayals, exploitation and emotional manipulation beggars belief. Rupert is often cowardly, creating emotional train wrecks  but running away from the scene of the crime and getting others to clean up his mess. He suggested Elisabeth should tell brother James to step down from his position after the  company’s phone hacking scandal. The two siblings wouldn’t talk for years afterwards.

Based on 150 interviews, journalist Gabriel Sherman has written a nightmare tale of wealth and the destruction it wreaks.

Bonfire of the Murdochs, by Gabriel Sherman. Published by Simon & Schuster. $36.99

JUNE 2026

Annie and Maeve are Definitely Not Friends, by Olivia Muscat

Enmity turns to friendship in this realistically told story.

Eleven-year-old Annie has left her old school St Lucy’s after a bout of bullying from her former friends. After a recent accident that left her blind and with a limp, fellow students inexplicably turned on her, unable to cope with the change. On her first day at North Avenue Primary Annie is assigned a buddy, Maeve. Maeve is a long time North Avenue student. She is also blind.

The girls are immediately suspicious and contemptuous of each other. Their blindness doesn’t create camaraderie. But as circumstances keep throwing them together, and challenges call for joint resolve, they find their defences lowering. When a talent contest dares Annie to step out of her shell, she finally triumphs and conquers the trauma of her accident and bullying, also finding a loyal tribe of friends. 

Olivia Muscat is a writer and disability activist. Annie and Maeve Are Definitely Not Friends is a middle grade novel about being vulnerable and finding your place in an often difficult and uncertain world. The story alternates between Maeve’s journal entries and a traditional third person narrative, deftly tracking Annie and Maeve’s personal transformations. A feel good story of courage and resilience that rings true to every word. 

Ages 9-11

Annie and Maeve are Definitely Not Friends, by Olivia Muscat. Published by Freemantle Press. $17.99

JUNE 2026

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith

A matchmaking agency presents a moral quandary for its new owner 

Thirty-year-old Katie has been offered The Perfect Passion Company, an old school introductions business. Her cousin Ness, who started the business and grew it into a respectable concern, has decided to take a gap year in Canada. She may return, she may not. With some trepidation, Katie takes on the business and its bulging files of lonely hearts. 

The matchmaking agency’s next door office on Little Mouse Street is occupied by a man four years Katie’s junior, William Kidd. Before leaving for Canada, Ness introduces William to Katie. It will be helpful, she decides, if the two get to know each other as Katie learns the ropes. William, it turns out, is the perfect gentleman - handsome, intelligent and courteous. There are no drawbacks, although he runs a curious business as a designer of woolen jumpers. He knits the designs up himself, which does lead to some assumptions about his sexuality, but the reader is assured that such reductive masculine stereotypes need not apply here. In fact, William has a fiance, Alice, back in his home city of Melbourne, Australia.

As Katie works through her first few matchmaking cases, William helps out in an advisory role, and the two strike up quite a friendship. Alice, the fiance back in Melbourne, often looms ominously in the background as Katie and William become closer. Is William and Alice’s  relationship really on firm ground, or are there cracks starting to show?  As Katie feels herself falling in love with William, she must do her best to keep her emotions in check.

The Perfect Passion Company started out as two e-book novellas, and now finds itself expanded into a four hundred page novel. All of the usual themes of Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction are present: sticky emotional entanglements, moral dilemmas, questions of how to live ethically. There is a good deal of stoicism in the pages of McCall Smith’s novels. Characters often must practice self-restraint and make decisions that prioritise the welfare of others. When Katie realises that her feelings for William could not only endanger herself, but cause cascading grief and heartbreak, she displays admirable self-control. Reading Alexander McCall Smith’s fiction, it’s always easy to empathise with his characters, to walk in their shoes and wonder, “What would I do?” 

In the end, all moral quandaries are resolved, and the good are rewarded for their exemplary behaviour and steadfastness. The not-so-good, if not punished, are certainly found out. The Perfect Passion Club is an entirely satisfying fiction about real lives and real world problems, with a cast of likable characters muddling through life as best they can.

The Perfect Passion Company, by Alexander McCall Smith. Published by Polygon. $39.99

MAY 2026