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A Guided Tour of a Neglected Pleasure
by Catherine Blyth
A wide-ranging, exhortatory look at the pleasures of great conversation, including strategies for how to bring it about, from the witty pen of an Englishwoman wise in its ways.
In The Art of Conversation, Catherine Blyth eloquently points out the sorry state of disrepair that conversation has fallen into—and then, taking examples from history, literature, philosophy, anthropology, and popular culture, she gives us the tools to rebuild. Her prose embodies the conversational values she promotes: It’s smart, succinct, self-deprecating, and light on its feet.
The Art of Conversation isn’t about etiquette, elocution, or knowing how to hold your teacup with your little finger crooked just so. It’s about something simple and profound: connecting. In our distracted days, it’s easy to forget that each of us possesses a communication technology that has been in research and development for thousands of years. Conversation costs nothing, but can bring you the world.
Blyth offers us a chance to revel in the possibilities of conversation. As Alexander Pope nearly wrote, "True ease in talking comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance." Okay, Pope was actually talking about writing, but Catherine Blyth has that skill as well. When you have read The Art of Conversation, you’ll not only know the steps, but hear the music like never before.
"Starred Review. Witty, eloquent and insightful, Blyth's book is a delightful encouragement to rediscover conversation as the best communication technology." - Publishers Weekly.
"Blyth is at her best when casually revealing valuable nuggets of information [but] [s]ometimes, the book's structure feels unnecessarily limiting, as if it could not quite decide whether to be a self-help manual or a chatty polemic of the Eats, Shoots and Leaves variety." - The Guardian (UK).
This information about The Art of Conversation was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Catherine Blyth is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in numerous British publications, including The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Despite her marriage to a mischievous gossip columnist, she still manages to enjoy a thriving social life.
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