The Art of Civilized Conversation: A Guide to Expressing Yourself with Style and Grace

by Margaret Shepherd

Book Overview

For those intimidated by the complexity of personal interaction, or those simply looking to polish their speaking skills, The Art of Civilized Conversation is a powerful guide to communicating in an endearing way. In our fast-paced, electronic society, the most basic social interaction--talking face-to-face--can be a challenge for even the most educated and self-assured individuals. And yet making conversation is a highly practical skill: those who...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767921690
• ISBN13: 9780767921695
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 7.5"

Customer Reviews

Clear and helpful. I loved it.

I bought this book at a thrift shop for 25 cents. It has been worth every penny and much more. This book presents specific guidelines on how to deal kindly with various types of people and how to conduct yourself politely in a multitude of social situations. In addition, it offers "do's" and "don't's" of what to say in short, simple sentences. You could practice the "do's" at home and memorize them so you will be prepared at any time. I enjoyed this book immensely because I am often confronted with very rude people. This book helped me to see that the people who upset me are actually NOT behaving according to proper rules of etiquette, and they ARE genuinely rude. This book has helped me to understand how I can effectively deal with rude people without being rude myself. (Question: Do rude people get offended when others are rude to them???) This book is a valuable resource for anyone who deals with people as part of their job, or for anyone of any age or situation in life who wants to live peacefully and happily with those around him. I enjoyed reading this book through once and will enjoy rereading it many times in the future. This book was so well done that if I could find a polite way to present it to my rude friends and associates, I would! Maybe the author even has a suggestion on how to do that with grace and style! A big THANK YOU to the author: You have brought a ray of class and elegance into my life which I will cherish for years.

A Good Resource to Improve your Conversational Skills

I borrowed this book from the library and now would like to have a copy of my own. I liked the author's informal conversational style. This book was easy to read and organized into chapters which you can read all at once or just refer to as needed. It's true that much of her advice seems obvious: tell the truth, don't interrupt, ask questions. However, judging from many of the conversations I have had, we often forget these common-sense rules. The most useful parts of the book for me were the suggestions for opening a conversation, dealing with difficult people and recovering from conversational blunders. This book is not a manual for learning how to manipulate people socially, in business or romance. Instead it is a handbook for people who are interested in turning conversation into connections. Most of the interactions we have with our family, friends and coworkers have very little content. This book helps us build the skills to make the most of each interaction.

Useful in work environment and at home

This book is helpful in stressful situation: it suggests best possible answers for difficult situations in work and at home. The book helps to be and to feel a real lady always, in all situations. It can be used for all ages.

Extremely helpful

I really enjoyed this book and found it very useful. Margaret Shepherd addresses just about any situation one can think of. If everyone owned this book and followed these conversational guidelines, the world would be a much better place.

Pretty good

You know the person who is shy, talks too much, and always puts her foot in her mouth and winds up offending you? Yeah. That's me. I got this book in the hopes that it would help me to be able to socially chat in group settings. I enjoyed this book. It has given me some advice and some pointers in how to have conversations with people. Some of the tips are pretty obvious, but still stated in such a way to give me pause. The author has some insightful things to say as well. She gives brief lists of do's and dont's for almost all of the topics in the book. For example how to (and how not to) accept a compliment. One major problem I had is that the author seems to regard conversation as a game. I don't. So in some instances her outlook did not help me. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a bore, who is shy, or who always seems to be putting thier foot in thier mouth. Honestly I would recommend it to anyone wanting to improve thier conversational skills.