Gossip: Ten Pathways to Eliminate It from Your Life and Transform Your Soul

by Lori Palatnik

Evil speech can destroy friendships, break up marriages and ruin businesses. Gossip—negative talk, put-downs, rumors, accusations—not only hurts the person being talked about, it also hurts the person speaking and the person listening. In short, gossip has a negative impact on everyone. Yet, despite these negative consequences, gossip has been around since the beginning of humankind and continues to be a popular but destructive pastime.

Throughout this timely and enjoyable book, readers will learn what the Bible and Jewish wisdom have to say regarding speech and how their teachings relate to our world today. Readers will also learn via real-life examples how to break the gossip habit and how to teach others to do the same. Gossip will help people develop skills to improve their lives by getting along better with others; mending old hurts and reclaiming lost relationship; keeping good relationships from going bad through hurtful words; and strengthening relationships they already have by speaking in a more encouraging and productive manner.

The purpose of this book is to extinguish the fire of evil speech and help us live in a gossip-free environment. The result? Positive interactions with the people around us, the healing of relationships and a more complete self.

Genres: Nonfiction

143 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 25, 2002

Reviews

[Richard Tubb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very thought provoking book, co-written by a Jewish educator and a public speaker.

Gossip is a horrible trait that can upset people and ruin lives, and so this book lays out a pathway to help you curb your desire to speak ill of others, and to avoid gossip reaching your ears.

The book leans heavily into the guidelines of the Jewish faith and culture, but the underlying lessons the authors are teaching are valuable to anyone of any religion (or those who don't follow a religion).

This book made me more mindful of my thoughts, the words that I speak, and the people I choose to spend time with.

[Jane De vries · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would ordinarily have given it three stars because it was a little too religious for many but it had LOTS of good info packed into 140 pages!

Now more than ever, we need to find alternatives to vicious gossip. It is destroying our young people.

[Colby Goettel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'll save you an hour and a half: gossip is bad, don't do it, think before you speak.

[Manugw · Rating 5 out of 5]

GOSSIP RANKS AMONG THE WORST MANKIND PRACTICES

Ask someone what is the most pervasive harmful habit of mankind and he will probably answer drugs, smoking, alcohol, but he will certainly omit gossip

The Old Testament, (or the Five Books of Moses) expressly forbids gossip and considers it among the worst sins, because gossip leads to evil speech and through it the gossipmonger is harming a third party while he is not there, furthermore the listener is also considered an offender, because through listening he contributes to the spread of gossip, (..this is just one example of the many insights offered in this book..)

The authors propose then ten effective pathways to avoid gossip, using Bible wisdom, universal quotes, elements of the Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) as source and contemporary everyday "The Jonesses" stories as examples of how gossip harmfully interferes and distorts the course of events destroying reputations, lives, old friendships, and partnerships

At the end, there is a useful summary of the gists of everyone of the chapters for practical everyday use.

When you finish this "Avoid Gossip Handbook" you will conclude that gossip and evil hold hands and will think in advance many times before talking about other people businesses for the sake of speaking.

[Judy Kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I originally picked up this book because it was a recommended read from the healing from verbal abuse book and I thought it was going to teach on how to heal from slander and verbal harassment and gossip from others but it was a pretty strongly voiced book that used more fear tactics and bad reminders of the consequences if you gossip more than healing from it. It seems like the author struggled with a lot of issues from gossiping herself and needed to teach on how to have self control and shut up. It's not a very helpful read for those looking for help from emotional and verbal abuse.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

We have all participated in it. We have all been hurt by it. Why do we continue to gossip? Read this book. You will probably think twice the next time you feel compelled the "share" information that is none of your business.

[Loretta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little self-help book in avoiding gossip in one's life.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has inspired me to change some of my bad habits!

[Shoshanah Shear]

An important topic, well presented.