The Art of Conversation: A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure

I shouldn’t have finished this. The author’s writing style bugged me.

I did like how the book is organized – a chapter for each different aspect of conversation, each with a set of “Rules” – but she kills the momentum with her writing. She’ll never use a simple word where a complex one will do, and she goes overboard on a flowery, literary style.

This book could have been straightforward, to-the-point, and helpful. Instead, it seemed to be an exercise in how much the author could impress herself with obscure anecdotes and pretentious language.

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