Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Nonfiction: What Every BODY is Saying, Joe Navarro

What Every BODY is Saying
Joe Navarro
ISBN: 9780061438295
Read January 26, 2015
Ex-FBI-agent and Cuban immigrant teaches how to "read" posture and gestures.

There are several books on body language out there, and lots of them have the same basic info as this one (The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara and Allan Pease comes immediately to mind) but this one is different in that Navarro takes the time to get inside the gestures and postures he is describing, and unpacks the psychology and mental gymnastics behind each one.

Super useful, super interesting, and he's quite right that this sort of thing ought to be more commonly known than it is.  At the moment, talented con-men, a few investigative agents, a few more behavioral psychologists, and a whole raft of professional actors know all of these tricks instinctively, or through extended attentive concentrated effort, but the everyday person still thinks that someone who doesn't make eye-contact is lying, or that if someone is nervous during an interview it means that they're guilty.

Much recommended, along with Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear).

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