How to Win Friends and Influence People - Dale Carnegie
Old Dale sets out in the 1920s to find a book about how to get along with people and gain confidence. What's the secret sauce? He travels to many universities, corresponds with professors and other learned men, all to find there is no such book of wisdom! So he wrote one.
First off, it's not some step-by-step textbook. The author himself says you can open it to any given chapter and have a read. True! Most of it is Carnegie telling short stories of his experiences and what he learned about people. Couple of examples that stick with me:
He finds himself at a dinner party where the host will not, cannot STFU. The man goes on and on so Carnegie listens politely and hardly says a word. By the end of the evening the host is walking him out telling him what a great orator and conversationalist he is!
In another story a man is terribly afraid of some near-future event, I think he fears losing his job? Carnegie walks him through his fears always asking him to imagine the worst outcome and then asking if he could live with it, not die. The answer is always yes.
It's long been in the public domain.