A Chapter That Defines Our Age of NoiseWhy “Zoom and the Rise of the Talking Head” Is the Standout Chapter in Back to Me

Today on the newsletter, I want to spotlight a chapter from Quentin Drummond Anderson’s new book Back to Me: The Global Art of Talking Without Listening — a chapter that, in my view, captures the modern world with uncanny clarity.

As someone who reads and reviews dozens of manuscripts each year for The Writers Collective, very little surprises me anymore. But Chapter Five, “Zoom and the Rise of the Talking Head,” stopped me in my tracks.

It’s sharp. It’s funny. It’s painfully recognisable. And it explains something we all lived through — but never fully understood.

The Fearless Fifteen: How the SAS Changed the Face of War

★★★★★ "A masterpiece of military history that reads like an adventure novel"

They were fifteen extraordinary men who transformed a desperate wartime experiment into the world's most elite fighting force. From a Cambridge-educated linguist to a cheeky teenage cockney, from an Irish rugby international to a Yorkshire farm boy, these individuals forged the Special Air Service and changed warfare forever.

Based on newly declassified documents and exclusive family archives, this is their untold story.

The Untold Stories Behind the Legend

Back to Me is one of those books you start reading, laugh out loud at, then quietly think: “Oh no… I know ALL these people. And worse — I might BE some of them.”
Quentin Drummond Anderson basically takes you on a world tour of conversational madness: the Serial Interrupter, the Humblebrag, the Empathy Mirage merchant who says “I totally get you” before turning it straight back to themselves, the One-Upper who can’t let anyone else have a single win… they’re all here, and described with the kind of accuracy that makes you wince and grin at the same time.
What makes the book brilliant is that it’s not just comedy — it’s genuinely insightful. The cultural bits (British apologetic interrupting vs. American enthusiastic interrupting vs. Nordic glorious silence) are spot-on. And the chapters on Zoom-era “talking heads” had me howling; anyone who has sat through a video call will feel deeply, tragically seen.
I came for the humour, but stayed for the uncomfortable truth: we’re all guilty of at least one of these sins of conversation. This book makes you laugh, it makes you think, and it might even make you a better listener.
Highly recommended — especially if you’ve ever left a dinner party exhausted by someone else’s TED Talk about themselves. Or given one.