Rating: 
Summary: People from Mars may need translation
Review: John Gray did the male gender no favors by characterizing us guys as "from Mars". Fortunately, Deborah Tannen knows better. Despite her male detractors, who usually find fault with what they consider overindulgence of the more estrogen-laden of our species, Dr. Tannen strives (and succeeds) at maintaining a refreshing academic distance from a strong gender bias in this seminal work. Her anecdotal examples of male and female communication styles are convincing and rub no ones noses in their own verbal messes. Having found impenetrable more than one woman's labyrinth of words and feelings, it was quite comforting to find from a woman a sympathetic spirit. If you have tried reading "Men Are From Mars..." and were put off by the premise, "You Just Don't Understand" may provide a welcome alternative in the male/female communication blues.
Rating:
Summary: People from Mars may need translation
Review: John Gray did the male gender no favors by characterizing us guys as "from Mars". Fortunately, Deborah Tannen knows better. Despite her male detractors, who usually find fault with what they consider overindulgence of the more estrogen-laden of our species, Dr. Tannen strives (and succeeds) at maintaining a refreshing academic distance from a strong gender bias in this seminal work. Her anecdotal examples of male and female communication styles are convincing and rub no ones noses in their own verbal messes. Having found impenetrable more than one woman's labyrinth of words and feelings, it was quite comforting to find from a woman a sympathetic spirit. If you have tried reading "Men Are From Mars..." and were put off by the premise, "You Just Don't Understand" may provide a welcome alternative in the male/female communication blues.
Rating:
Summary: Virtually the only coherent book on this topic
Review: Look, gender-based communication style doesn't explain EVERY behavioral difference between a man and a woman, and certainly Tannen has biases as an author, but taken for what it is, it's exceptional.
There are enough "what he said, what she heard" jokes going around on the internet that it's obvious that most people pick up on a difference in communication that's gender-based. What Tannen has done is tied this back into a cultural worldview, the culture of men and the culture of women, and talks about how these are and how these interact.
Since she wrote this, she's directly applied the concepts to the business world in a different book. She also did a parenting book. Personally, I like this one the best.
It's a quick read and it's very interesting. The examples are great and, unless you never deal with adults or children of the opposite gender on a 1:1 basis, you really should give it a peek.
Rating:
Summary: groundbreaking
Review: More than any other book/movie/person/whatever, this book has made me understand how women think and why they do the things they do, and why communication between the sexes is often an exercise in frustration. I read this while writing my first novel, and it made me go back and rewrite some of the dialogue. And most women no longer think of me as a total ...I would like to see a study done on the effects her books have had on domestic violence. This, along with her other books, should be required reading for everyone. In retrospect, it is astonishing to think that the sexes have co-existed so long without fully understanding each other.
Rating: 
Summary: It may not be a guy thing (or a girl thing)
Review: One of the things I've noticed about books like this is that the author comes up with a "matrix" of different, usually opposing, characteristics (in this case, human behaviour), then uses that matrix to explain *all* the differences in behaviour. Here Tannen expresses every described conflict between men and women *solely* in terms of gender differences. SOme are, some aren't.Books like this sound very plausible when you are reading them, but then if you read another similar book, you notice that the second author uses an entirely different set of "parameters" for their own matrix (which is quite plausible when you're reading it as well). Trouble is, the two matrices that sound so compelling are totally incompatible and in fact contradict each other. Moral of the story: it doesn't have to be accurate, it just has to be plausible enough to get a publishing deal. Good case in point: Tannen mentions the trouble she had with a new computer purchase. The first time she took it back to the shop, the repairman was very unhelpful and spouted a bunch of gibberish at her. Later, she took the computer back and talked to one of the saleswomen, who solved her problem. Conclusion: men are unfriendly and one-uppers, while women are helpful and nurturing. Problem is, I've known many women who act like the uncommunicative repairman. And I've seen many males who are very helpful and can easily help solve people's problems. So this wasn't a male-female difference that Tannen experienced, it was simply that the first person she encountered (who happened to be male) was a very technically oriented type; he probably wasn't trying to be rude or unhelpful, he was just not too great at verbal interaction. Likewise, the second person Tannen met (who happened to be female) was in sales, a "people person". She was the type of person who is empathetic and able to communicate ideas and understand where someone else is struggling. There are many other scenarios in this book that have other explanations other than guy thing/girl thing. So a very large caveat if you want to buy this: the author isn't really trying to accurately *explain* why a conflict happened, she's just illustrating the central thesis of her book. A little more objectivity would have been quite welcome.
Rating: 
Summary: Whining misrepresentation.
Review: Tannen represents herself as an objective linguist but
does little more than rail against men and make a biased,
self-serving case for women. Thankfully, most women with
whom I've discussed her work see through it and its reductive
claims about report talk (men) vs. rapport talk (women).
Not only is she an obvious, cliched, reductive thinker but
an impoverished stylist as well. If the reader had a dollar
for each time she uses the word "hierarchical" (to men's
discredit, of course), he'd probably fare as well as Tannen
did on the royalties for this nonsense. Women will only lose
in the competitive real world by following Tannen's advice.
Rating:
Summary: No You Really DON'T Understand
Review: Tannen's pop-gender theory just isn't cutting it. In academic circles, Tannen's ideas are as outdated as the hoop skirt. Elsewhere, they fall flat, poised on experiments without controls, haphazard 'examples' drawn from mysterious (and never defined or outlined) encounters with random people. Gone is social context, and other differences (cultural, age, and class) are never even considered in Tannen's book. Instead, she expects her readers to attribute all her described linguistic methods to mere gender difference. As a result, this book reads more like a dime-store novel than an intelligent critique of modern communication. A perfect example of what NOT to read if you are interested in gender theory or writings on gendered language.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and scholarly
Review: Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, provides a highly readable account of the communication difficulties between the two genders. I was introduced to this book as part of an interpersonal communications course I took in college. Tannen provides strong statistics, examples, and testimony throughout the book to support her ideas. Students and professors of communication theory will probably find this book very helpful in their studies. One doesn't have to be a scholar, however, to find this an interesting and enlightening read.
Rating:
Summary: Credit for being first
Review: The author reserves all the credit for being the one with the idea first before the tale of women and men being from different planets. This one, being older is not as polished and still has the point of view of a female human. Nevertheless, it does pinpoint some important issues in the communications between the sexes but it too often assumes women being submissive and innocent, and men being sullen and controlling, maybe it was then, it is not now.
Rating: 
Summary: Conversation Matters!
Review: The communication barrier that exists between men and women is explored in the book, You Just Don't Understand - Women and Men in Conversation. Linguist, Deborah Tannen, takes a look at various situations that women and men, girls and boys, encounter on a daily basis. Tannen believes that our difference in conversation stems from the way that we are raised as children. The values that society places on gender roles are apparent when it comes to communication style. Tannen wants her readers to be able "to sort out differences based on conversational style." The real-life circumstances that Tannen incorporates into the book followed by a detailed explanation of how the incident can be interpreted, allows readers to examine their own lifestyle and possibly make beneficial changes. Tannnen's goal is help people make sense of the differences that surround them. She says, "We all want, above all, to be heard - but not merely to be heard. We want to be understood."
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