An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half
About this ebook
An insightful book packed with wonderful writing, practical advice, and hope for a better, kinder future. —Jonathan Eig, author of King: A Life
You're ready to give up. Throw up your hands and walk out the door. You don't know what else to say—to some dear family and close friends, let alone the crazy strangers that seem to populate half the country. You're ready to read An Effort to Understand.
But don't worry. This is not a book about civility.
Instead, David Murray (blogger, speechwriter, rhetoric authority, and professional curmudgeon) is urging readers to join him in a near-spiritual movement, one that pushes us to consider communication as more than a means of persuading others to our way of thinking, but as a way of thinking all its own.
With his signature blend of wit, warmth, and four-letter words, Murray's essays tackle subjects from the specter of cancel culture and the responsibilities of citizenship to the art of dealing with annoying neighbors and the challenges of talking to kids about injustice. His words show that the personal and political gulfs between us are small compared to our common desire to connect.
It may be a last-ditch effort, but Americans have a chance at trust, peace, and solidarity if we make an effort to speak more honestly and listen to understand.
Because when it comes to communication, we're all the bad guys. Thankfully, we have a chance to be the good guys too.
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About the author
David Murray is an award-winning journalist. He is the author of An Effort to Understand: Hearing One Another (and Ourselves) in a Nation Cracked in Half and Raised by Mad Men, a memoir about his advertising parents, and is coauthor of the New York Times bestseller Tell My Sons: A Father's Last Letters.
He is editor and publisher of one of the world's longest continuously published magazines, Vital Speeches of the Day, and heads the global Professional Speechwriters Association, which he founded. He comments daily on communication issues on his popular blog "Writing Boots."
The son of two writers, Murray grew up in Hudson, Ohio, and studied English at Kent State University. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Cristie Bosch, and daughter, Scout Murray.
