Perfect Downloads for Summer Reading

There are some high quality, no-strings resources on conflict out there  for free right now!   If you're looking for summer reading, here's two good options.

High Conflict by Amanda Ripley

Since publication last year, Amanda Ripley's book, High Conflict: How We Get Trapped and How We Get Out has consistently drawn praise from reviewers. It's an engaging presentation of key skills and strategies for dealing with entrenched conflict, the kind we see and feel all around us these days.

Ripley structures the book around a series of real-life stories and shows how people used things like investigating the understory (there is one behind every entrenched conflict, she notes) re-framing, broadening identities, finding commonalities, marginalizing the fire-starters (the people who get a thrill out of the fight), buying time and space, and other responses that can get beyond polarization.

The publisher, Simon and Schuster, for reasons I'm not clear about, is currently offering the book as a free download on their site or Amazon Kindle.   If you get the book from Kindle, you can also get it in Audible for listening.   I was told it's available only till end of July - which might be true or just publisher hype to create FOMO (Fear of Missing Out, a common marketing strategy).

Let's Talk about Hard Things by Anna Sale

While you're downloading High Conflict you might as well also get another outstanding book on conflict which Simon and  Schuster are also offering as a free download. Anna Sale's book, Let's Talk about Hard Things is about conflict with people we love, with chapters on death, sex, money, family, and identity.

Confession: I've not read either of these books. But I've downloaded and scanned both of them and they look like exactly the kind of reading I like to take along on a vacation. Well-written, illuminating, provocative, entertaining, deeply grounded in real life settings. Both do an excellent job of weaving story and concepts together in ways that hold attention and inspire.

New Short Videos on Conflict Styles

If you liked the Style Matters conflict style inventory, you'll enjoy the short videos I published a few months ago. I'd particularly recommend Start with Strengths: You're Better than You Think and Diversify: When is Strength a Weakness? Under 3 minutes in length, these free videos offer important insights for self-management and working with others.