The Fine Art of Small Talk: How To Start a Conversation, Keep It Going, Build Networking Skills -- and Leave a Positive Impression!

It's an okay book. Unless you are totally inept at social or business occasions with almost no clue of what to talk about, then this book is not going to be of much help. There are a few good ideas in the book that come up during the early portions of it. But otherwise, it's mostly a list of things to do and not to do supported by tons of anecdotal stories.

You'll not be disappointed too much if you read quickly.

As many other reviewers have noted, this a so-so book with a reasonable amount of good advice -- so pretty decent for a self help book.

Fine's key insight is that small talk serves an important purpose. It's not just mindless dribble that people who can't handle real conversations use to pass the time. It can be the tool that builds the rapport and trust that allows deep conversation to happen.

Fine's key tip is that the key to making good small talk is to get the other person to talk. People like to talk about themselves, and when you give them the opportunity to do so, they think you're a good conversationalist! The way to do this is to ask open ended questions, and then give the speaker the gift of sincerely listening. Not only will show more this listening be noticed and make the other person help continue the conversation, it will also allow you to pick up on useful tidbits that can be used to move the conversation further forward.

For these two ideas, the book was worth reading. show less

I couldn't finish this at the first time of reading. Finally finished it this time around. Debra has some great tips but there are some that I find are quite unusable.

Some useful advice, but a bit dated, unless you attend weekly luncheons.

Great information

This is a really great and actionable book. The author gives a ton of really useful advice for all situations.

Pretty helpful, easy to read, and non-pretentious sort of advice/writing (don't you hate those?).

Unfortunately I can't say whether it 100% helped since I have yet to incorporate the lessons in the book into my life (reading it 2 days ago so that's maybe why).

mostly obvious suggestions. There is little "fine art" in it.