If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My
Face?
My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and
Communicating
by Alan Alda
Read by Alan Alda
This is a book that needs to be listened to. You could buy the hardback and not miss anything, at least nothing from the text. What you would miss out on is the experience of hearing Alda tell you his story in his words and in his voice.
I always, when it comes to non-fiction, prefer if the writer reads the book. It makes it richer, more personal like having them in the car with you (I happen to listen to my books in my car you may listen at home). It’s like having a good wine with a good meal. The meal is good without the wine but you are missing something nonetheless.
If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? happens to be very entertaining and well thought out. Alda’s wit and smarts make this book enjoyable even if you are not all that interested in better communicating with others.
Because of his years in television and movies, he knows how to engage a reader.
This book is a fast six hours. It is informative without being too complicated and that’s exactly what Alda set out to do. Communicate to his readers.
I listened to this book over two-afternoon drives and honestly hated to finish the last chapter. It was letting a good friend or at least an interesting friend off at a destination that had come all too quick.
He’s 81 and I remember him in his 40’s with MASH, Four Seasons and later Sweet Liberty and listening to him talk a little about those years (this book wasn’t about him or his past, he did, however, touch lightly upon those years) added to the richness of this work. I do hope he has many more stories to tell.
Alda explains how to relate to and communicate more effectively with others, using improv and ways to read other people — techniques developed by the author, from his experiences as an actor and founder of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.
He’s a beloved actor, star of M*A*S*H, writer, and director, whose many years of interviewing scientists on Scientific American Frontiers led him on a quest to develop ways to help us learn how to communicate better especially hard things.
In If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? Alda teaches us ways to build empathy, use improv games, storytelling, your mind-reading ability, and more, to improve the way you relate to and talk to others everywhere, from the boardroom to the bedroom. This book digs into the heart of what it means to be a true communicator: being able to read another person so well, you know what they’re thinking and feeling, especially when you have to talk about hard things. Alda has seen this kind of relating be indispensable for real communication among families, between lovers, in business, between doctors and patients and between scientists and the rest of us.
Alan Alda is a beloved public figure and bestselling author. His work, which ranges from Broadway to M*A*S*H to The West Wing to Scientific American Frontiers, has established him as an identifiable cultural personality.
After two bestselling memoirs, this audiobook marks an exciting departure into how we relate to others, while still maintaining Alda’s trademark humor and frankness.
Alda has earned international recognition as an actor, writer, and director. He has won seven Emmy Awards, has received three Tony nominations, is an inductee of the Television Hall of Fane, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in The Aviator. Alda played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series M*A*S*H, and his films include Crimes and Misdemeanors, Everyone Says I Love You, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, and much more.
Alda is an active member of the science community, having hosted the award-winning series Scientific American Frontiers for 11 years and founding the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. He is the author of two bestselling books, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned and Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself.
He lives in New York, NY
www.alanalda.com
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