Friendship Development

Jess Johnston used to feel alone in her mess. In a random burst of courage, she started sharing those insecurities and struggles out loud, and what she found shocked her. Again and again, people replied, “Me too! I thought I was the only one!” Over the past decade she’s reached hundreds of thousands of women with her messages of authenticity and refreshing realness, and this is what she’s found: Women are really, really hard on themselves, and we should stop it.

Briallen Hopper's Hard to Love honours the categories of loves and relationships beyond marriage, the ones that are often treated as invisible or seen as secondary - friendships, kinship with adult siblings, care teams that form in times of illness, or various alternative family formations. She also values difficult and amorphous loves like loving a challenging job or inanimate objects that can't love you back.

When Max Dickins decided to propose to his girlfriend, he realised there was no one he could call on to be his best man. He quickly learned that that he wasn’t the only man struggling with friendships. For decades, countless studies from across the world have confirmed that men have fewer close friends than women–and the problem gets worse the older men get. But what goes wrong? And what can men do about it? Dickins is going to find out. His funny and charmingly candid search takes him to the doors of world-leading experts.

When it comes to adult friendships, we’re woefully inept: We barely manage to show up for our own commitments, let alone maintain our relationships. What’s more, we’re living in an uncharted social landscape with new conventions on how to relate - one where actual phone calls are reserved for Mom (if anyone), “dropping in” is unheard-of, and “flaking out” is routine.

Friendship is one of the most important yet most underrated necessities of life. A sense of connection and belonging is a key part of being human, and there are boundless benefits from having close friends who know everything about you, can help you out in a pinch, can be there with you through all the joys and hardships of life, and for whom you can be such a friend in turn. But making and keeping friends becomes increasingly difficult when we become adults with busy careers, family responsibilities, and dispersed locations.

Tripping the Prom Queen is an investigation of the dark secret of female friendships, the deep vein of female rivalry. Based on interviews with women across the social spectrum, Susan Shapiro Barash has exploded the myth that women are generally supportive of one another.

My dear friend Roy decided to follow in his family's footsteps and enlist in the Royal Navy. I wanted to maintain our friendship, to continue to support Roy, to make him laugh and to entertain him. So I came up with the idea of sending him a weekly email on random topics.

By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, writers, visual artists and comp lit majors, and various other quirky characters including the handful of students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.

Loose Woman tells of a life-changing year - 1979 - when Beth Kaplan, a successful actor, surprised herself by agreeing to live and work with a group of intellectually disabled men in France. In this intimate, sometimes hilarious memoir, she leaves behind the backstage and bars of the Canadian theatre scene to embark on an extraordinary odyssey of self-discovery and redemption.

After becoming trapped in present-day Bath due to a mishap with her time-traveling charm, Jane Austen is safe and sound back in the 1800s thanks to Rose Wallace’s help. Now, Rose is ready to focus on her fledgling romance with dreamy Dr. Aiden Trevellyan. But when Jane reappears in the present, it looks like Rose and Aiden have no choice but to follow her back to 1813....

Inspirational words on parenting from the beloved Fred Rogers, showing appreciation for parents whose children are grown as well as giving advice to those parents raising young ones.

CNN news anchor Brooke Baldwin explores the phenomenon of “huddling", when women lean on one another to provide each other support, empowerment, inspiration, and the strength to solve problems or enact meaningful change. Beyond the headline-making huddles of recent years such as the #MeToo movement, the Time's Up initiative, and the 2018 midterm elections, when women won a historic number of seats across the country, Baldwin tells the stories of women of all ages, races, religions and socio-economic backgrounds who are huddling in all segments of society.

In this “entertaining mix of social science, memoir, and humor, as if a Daniel Goleman book were filtered through the lens of Will Ferrell” (The New York Times Book Review) a middle-aged man embarks on an entertaining and relatable quest to reprioritize his ties with his buddies and forge new friendships, all while balancing work, marriage, and kids.

For conscious women who are seeking more intimate friendships with other like-minded women, True Friends provides guidance on how to take radical responsibility so that you can begin to cultivate authentic friendships that are deeply connected and more meaningful for your personal development journey. True Friends provides stories, examples, and exercises to help you become more aware of how you are unconsciously contributing to the disconnection you experience with other women and exactly what you need to do to put an end to your "super cycles" once and for all.

The Circling and Authentic Relating Practice Guide is the most comprehensive digital resource available on the Authentic Relating movement. In addition to a practice guide with many examples of what to do and say in groups, it also contains a history of the movement, a section on precursors (which include Integral Theory, Non-Violent Communication, and "we-space"), an extensive resources section, sample leader formats, and instructions for starting your own groups, either in person or online.

How to connect with anyone - in a systematic and structured way. A true set of instructions for any social interaction. Sometimes our minds are blank and we run out of things to say. That's normal. This book seeks to simplify that moment with simple formulas and equations to keep you going, connecting, and charming. A detailed breakdown of what people look for in friends, rapport, and social skills. Social Equations is a book of research and iteration. This means that each formula has been verified and confirmed by psychologists and researchers, and then broken down into use for daily life.

"If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person." ( The World According to Mister Rogers)

Griefland. It's a place no one wants to visit - a place without borders where language is inadequate and pain is constant. It's a place where every morning, one awakens to the stark reality that a loved one will never be seen, heard - or embraced - again. This is a place that Armen Bacon and Nancy Miller know all too well, for both of them, when they met, had lost a child to drug addiction. Both of them had also enjoyed a comfortable, middle-class life - until it was rocked by the sudden death of a son Alex, and a daughter, Rachel.

Discover the unexpected ways friends influence our personalities, choices, emotions, and even physical health in this fun and compelling examination of friendship, based on the latest scientific research and ever-relatable anecdotes. Why is dinner with friends often more laughter-filled and less fraught than a meal with family? Although some say it's because we choose our friends, it's also because we expect less of them than we do of relatives.

Do you find it hard to connect with other people? Do your relationships feel stale and lack real, meaningful connections? Do you wish you were more confident, charismatic, and likable? How to Make People Like You is a book with detailed insights on everything you need to know when it comes to going from a shy, anxious, and awkward individual and transforming yourself into someone who can unapologetically be your real, genuine, and authentic self.