How to Know a Person by David BrooksHow to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
Burn Book by Kara SwisherThe Burn Book

High Conflict

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley

When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over.That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of healthy conflict. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people.High conflict, by contrast, is what happens when discord distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the kind with an us and a them. In this state, the normal rules of engagement no longer apply. The brain behaves differently. We feel increasingly certain of our own superiority and, at the same time, more and more mystified by the other side.New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist Amanda Ripley investigates how good people get captured by high conflict—and how they break free.

More Adult Books

  • In When We Flew Away, critically acclaimed author Alice Hoffman tells the poignant story of Anne Frank during the harrowing times of World War II. As the Nazi occupation forces Anne and her family into hiding, she discovers her own identity and voice amidst the chaos, ultimately becoming a symbol of resilience and hope.
  • Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged A Nation explores how girls who found self-understanding in nature grew into women who transformed America. Through the stories of iconic figures like Harriet Tubman and Louisa May Alcott, the book highlights the profound impact of the outdoors on women's independence and resilience, advocating for equal access to natural spaces for all young women today.
  • George Willard is a young reporter on the Winesburg Eagle to whom, one by one, the inhabitants of Winesburg, Ohio, confide their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. This town of friendly but solitary people comes to life as Anderson’s special talent exposes the emotional undercurrents that bind its people together. In this timeless cycle of short stories, he lays bare the life of a small town in the American Midwest.
  • From the bestselling author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings: an intimate work on the mysteries, frustrations, and triumphs of being a writer, and an instructive guide to awakening the soul. When Sue Monk Kidd was in high school, a home economics teacher wrote a list of potential occupations for women on the blackboard: teacher, nurse, librarian, secretary. “Writer” was nowhere to be found. On that day, Kidd shut the door on her writerly aspirations and would not revisit the topic until many years later when she announced to her husband and two children that she [...]