The Art of Chit Chat

This is a great, short how-to for those of us who dread making small talk. While the book is brief and to the point with helpful individual chapters, I felt the first introductory chapter was long and a little tedious. The chapter for introverts made this book safely accessible and an excellent recommendation for gifting to high schoolers, particularly those graduating.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Luigi Padovesi, and BooksGoSocial for providing this helpful guide to learning how to socialize in a variety of settings. This guide discusses the importance for small talk, how it can benefit you as well as others, and even examples of how to communicate in a variety of settings. This is a great tool for those in the business world as well for anyone in their everyday private lives. I love the variety of examples to use for conversation starters or to keep those awkward silences from happening. This is a very helpful guide and I look forward to picking up a physical copy as well. I plan to use this guide for myself as well as to help my children learn the art of small talk. Thank you again for allowing me to review this book.

This little guide was far more helpful than it has any right to be. I was drawn to it because I am an introvert who is married to a social butterfly. He attends a lot of functions on his own because I find communication with strangers to be exhausting, but this seemed like a good way to branch out and see if I could master some new skills. At first time I was a little disappointed because it seemed like the advice was fairly repetitive… Have some icebreakers in your pocket, look for commonalities, ask probing questions, read the other person's body language, have some exit strategies ready to draw the conversation to close at the appropriate time. This advice was applied to almost every scenario in the book, but after hearing it over and over again, it definitely made sense. Personally, I found the most helpful section to be at the end of the book. The tips for navigating thorny conversations and especially the chapter about small talk for introverts were right up my alley.

Overall, I would say this is a guide to making conversation, not just chitchat. The goal is to connect with other people in a positive way and I feel like I can definitely apply these tips to my own life. As I read through each chapter, half of me was inspired to try to be more social with strangers and the other half was continuously horrified by the idea that some rando might try to talk to me. I decided to split the difference… My first step will be grocery shopping without my earbuds in because I know old people like to chat me up in the grocery store! After that, who knows? Baby steps toward connecting with other humans.

I appreciate NetGalley and the publisher for access to a digital ARC. My honest review is my own opinion

Some really good tips and points about conversation - how to make it, the value of different types, and both gracefully starting and exiting conversations.