The Art of Small Talk

The Art of Small Talk
Podcast Description
Hilarious and practical advice for how to up your small talk game from comedians, actors and self-appointed experts on chit-chat, Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair.
Prepare to be schooled in the art of conversation by dynamic duo Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair. Dismissing the notion that small talk is a painful social obligation, these self-proclaimed small talk maestros share their gift of gab in this laugh-out-loud and instructive audiobook. With their help you might find yourself excitedly asking your barista about the weather…and maybe you’ll get a free coffee. Who knows!
In The Art of Small Talk, Casey and Jessica share six simple rules for how to engage in small talk and achieve the connectedness we all crave with any and everyone. Backed by scientific research (conducted by real experts), they’ll teach you how to move past the perceived misery of idle chit-chat and start making magic out of the mundane.
The audiobook features smart humor, genuine advice, and conversations with both the famous and the intellectual. Hear from folks like Amy Poehler, Colin Quinn, Tony Hale, Malcolm Gladwell, June Diane Raphael, and a range of experts with their takes on not only the how but also the why. Filled with entertaining tips to take you from Hostile Beginner to Confident Expert, compelling insights on the significance of chatting up strangers, plus transformational tape of a real, live, Small Talk trainee in action, The Art of Small Talk breathes new life into a lost art and explores its profound impact on our human experience.
After listening to the undisputed Patron Saints of Small Talk, you will have all the tools and gumption at your disposal to take your headphones off on the tarmac and ask your mate in 20C: Have you listened to the Art of Small Talk by Casey Wilson and Jessica St. Clair? It will change your life.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
Explores the art of small talk through humor and practical advice, featuring topics like developing conversation skills, understanding the psychology behind chit-chat, and real-life small talk examples. Notable episodes include insights from celebrities and experts like Amy Poehler and Malcolm Gladwell addressing the importance of casual conversation.

With Pushkin+ audiobooks, you’ll get access to a new Pushkin+ audiobook every other month. That’s 6 free audiobooks a year! From July 1 to August 31, listen to Unroyal: Three Women Who Shook the Monarchy by Sarah Lyall. Pushkin+ subscribers also get access to ad-free listening, exclusive bonus episodes of podcasts like Cautionary Tales and Risky Business, full binges to our top true crime shows like Deep Cover, and more. Sign up now on the Apple show page or at pushkin.com/plus.
One was a married American socialite who embarked on a scandalous affair with the future king of England. Another was an aristocratic ingenue whose winsome charm captured the world’s imagination. And the third was a thirty-something actress whose outspokenness put her on a collision course with the British public. The marriages of Wallis Simpson, Diana Spencer and Meghan Markle into the British royal family sparked a series of crises that at times seemed to threaten the future of the monarchy itself. In Unroyal, veteran New York Times reporter and former London correspondent Sarah Lyall revisits how each royal wife threatened the stability of – and was ultimately rejected by – this most ancient and opaque of institutions.
Using archival material and interviews with experts like the bestselling author Tina Brown, the royal biographer Andrew Morton and the social commentator and broadcaster Afua Hirsch, Lyall’s audio documentary examines three pivotal TV interviews in which each woman pushed up against the official royal narrative: Wallis in 1970, Diana in 1995, and Meghan in 2021. Lyall describes the differences and highlights the similarities between the women at these three flexion points to examine the endless codependent dance between the monarchy, the public and the news media and to shed fresh light on the fraught intersection of power, fame and family politics in an institution torn between tradition and modernization.
Narrated by the author against a beguiling soundscape of contemporaneous news footage and a spectral score, Unroyal blends the probing inquisition of You’re Wrong About with the historical intrigue of “The Crown”, serving both neophytes and obsessives a delectable royal feast for the ears.

There are three notable people missing from the May 2023 coronation of King Charles III: Wallis Simpson, Diana Spencer, and Meghan Markle. These three outsiders each fell in love with a member of the royal family during different eras, created scandalous headlines, and ultimately challenged the monarchy’s core beliefs and enduring values. They offer a keyhole into the inscrutable inner workings of the royal family and provide a new perspective on what the monarchy could stand for in a modern era.
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