9 Free Friendship Books [PDF]

Looking for friendship books that go past the usual advice? This collection has two halves: the classic essays that asked what a friend actually is, and the practical guides for making friends now.

Cicero wrote his treatise on friendship in 44 BC, and people still reach for it when a friendship ends. Montaigne, Emerson and Bacon each took a turn at the same question, and none of them agreed completely.

The practical half covers conversation, trust, and keeping a friendship alive once life gets busy. Every book is free to read online or download as PDF.

• Two Essays on Old Age and Friendship

  

  Cicero's two late essays, written in 44 BC, on growing old and on what actually binds friends together. His argument is that real friendship is only possible between people of good character, and that it cannot be bought or traded.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Format: PDF 233 pages 4.91 MB

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• The Essays of Montaigne

  

  The complete essays in the Cotton translation, including Of Friendship, written after the death of Etienne de La Boetie. Montaigne insists the bond he is describing shows up perhaps once in three centuries.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Format: PDF 519 pages 26.61 MB

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• Essays

  

  Both series of Emerson's essays, including Friendship, where he treats a friend as a paradox: someone you need badly and must still leave completely free. Clean modern typeset edition.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Format: PDF 208 pages 2.07 MB

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• Essays, Civil and Moral

  

  Bacon's collected essays, with Of Friendship arguing that talking things through with a friend is the only real relief for a crowded mind. The volume also carries New Atlantis and long pieces by Milton and Browne.

  Francis Bacon

  Format: PDF 365 pages 17.5 MB

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• Nicomachean Ethics

  

  Books eight and nine hold the oldest sustained analysis of friendship in Western philosophy. Aristotle sorts friendship into three kinds, built on usefulness, pleasure, or character, and argues only the last one survives.

  Aristotle

  Format: PDF 123 pages 1.65 MB

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• The Seven Challenges Communication Skills Workbook and Reader

  

  Seven communication skills turned into exercises you can practice: listening more carefully, saying what you mean, asking instead of assuming, and thanking people properly. Written for work, family and friendship alike.

  Dennis Rivers

  Format: PDF 116 pages 2.56 MB

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• Interpersonal Communication: A Mindful Approach to Relationships

  

  A full university course on relationships with an entire chapter devoted to friendship: how friendships start, the stages they pass through, and what makes them end. Comes with exercises and review questions.

  Wrench, Punyanunt-Carter and Thweatt

  Format: PDF 444 pages 21.06 MB

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• Friendship and Technology: A Philosophical Approach to Computer-Mediated Communication

  

  What happens to friendship when most of it runs through a screen. Petricini follows the idea from Aristotle to social media and asks whether contact at a distance can carry the same weight as the real thing.

  Tiffany Petricini

  Format: PDF 157 pages 2.46 MB

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• Communication in the Real World

  

  An introduction to communication studies covering listening, verbal and nonverbal signals, perception and conflict. Solid groundwork if conversation feels harder than it should.

  Jay Frasier and Dan Henry

  Format: PDF 258 pages 5.23 MB

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Friendship is the one relationship nobody teaches you to handle. These books at least give you the vocabulary for it.

If you want the same theme in fiction, our friendship novels collection has the stories. For everything else, browse books on various topics.

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  Friendship Novels

  Bonds, loyalty, companions. Novels celebrating the power of friendship.

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  Communication Books

  Expression, clarity, connection. The art and science of effective communication.

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  Loneliness Books

  Isolation, connection, well-being. Understanding the psychology of being alone.

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  Trust Books

  Confidence, faith, reliability. Building and maintaining trust in yourself and others.

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  Emotional Intelligence Books

  Empathy, awareness, relationships. Mastering emotions for a better life.