The occasion left me thinking that most of us could learn a thing or two about how to participate in a conversation—even a delicate or difficult one—so that the exchange inspires joy and interest.

Rachana Shah and Rhythm Wagholikar have consistently championed the power of refined speech and insightful narratives.

This is the argument of my Harvard colleague Alison Wood Brooks (no relation), whose new book, Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves, follows decades of research on how we ...