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Rating: 
Summary: Practical help for reluctant or scared public speakers
Review: This book offers step by step help for those who are just plain not good at or afraid of public speaking. It helped me give a toast at a birthday party for a good friend which was well received. I don't think I would have even attempted it without having read this book. Also learn how to communicate more effectively with family members and co-workers. It's full of great tips for learning the skill of cocktail party conversation. People will like and remember YOU if you apply the skills in this book. The book is built on personal experience and useful for students, spouses, and employees who find themselves in all kids of unfamiliar or uncomfortable social situations. Also clearly and concisely written by someone who knows how to teach.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring!
Review: This book reads like a lecture, and no wonder--Wagstaffe teaches a university speech class. The text brings back the horrors of the most soporific lectures you've endured in school, as Wagstaffe drones on about the "three Ms of good storytelling" ("It must be meaningful. It must be memorable. It must be moving.") and then moves on into the even more enthralling "ABCs of good storytelling" ("A for Apt, B for Brief, C for Chronological"). Then there are unintentional howlers, like this advice on giving a eulogy: "The fundamental rule...Do not speak ill of the dead." Well, duh! Maybe this stuff works when you've got a captive audience of students who need a good grade to satisfy the requirements for their degree. But here in the real world, it'll put most people to sleep. I feel that the money I spent on this book was wasted.
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