Everyone likes to talk, fewer like to listen. Fortunately, Stephen Coleman is wonderfully good at listening. In his book, Coleman listens to ordinary people discuss politics, telling us what they say but also how they wish to be heard. Coleman exhibits great generosity when doing so and, when combined with his own deft interpretations, a masterwork results. How People Talk About Politics is a book to be read but also a book to be savored.

Dr Roderick P. Hart, Shivers Centennial Chair in Communication and Professor of Government, University of Texas at Austin, USA

Stephen Coleman has listened to what a range of British people have to say about their everyday political conversations: how and why they talk (or don't talk) about politics, and how they feel about political talk. Their accounts become the basis for a nuanced set of arguments about what's gone wrong with democratic discourse, and what could be done to make things better.

Deborah Cameron, Professor of Language and Communication, Oxford University, UK