GET CONNECTED!

A breezy survey of many ways we have found to send warnings, information, and messages to one another.

The author cuts plenty of corners here—limiting a list of what we use to express “body language” to shrugs, chin rubs, and facial expressions, for instance, and skipping direct mention of visual arts except for cave art and cat videos. She sweeps through a broad if superficial history and catalog of media types and tech from the invention of writing to online social media. Then, abruptly segueing to a different but related topic, she closes with suggestions for ways of learning how to communicate better, such as asking open-ended questions, in the course of talking up the social, mental, and even physical benefits of face-to-face conversations and of getting and staying in touch with others. Meanwhile, Emans provides a multiracial cast of retro, Peter Max–style cartoon figures chattering and gesticulating animatedly to crank up the (visual!) energy. Maria Birmingham’s Can We Talk? (2025) includes the same message while more methodically covering similar cultural and historical territory, but less advanced readers may find Barnham’s treatment lighter of tone and more easily digestible of content.

A long way from thorough, but with some flashes of insight.