"Do You Want Better Conversations with your lover, your colleagues at work, your family, friends or strangers, or yourself? Conversation explains what kind of talk charmed and excited people in the past and why we talk differently today. It explores the art and the history of conversation and how it can be the key to a happier, more interesting future. It shows how women have changed the ways lovers speak, how families avoid silence or boredom, how our work can damage or improve the way we converse and what role there is for the tongue-tied and shy. This book will enable us to see more clearly what we want to talk about and what conversation can do to our lives. Conversation began as a series of talks broadcast on the BBC."