Max Atkinson

Lend Me Your Ears - Book Review

Lend Me Your Ears: All You Need To Know About Making Speeches And Presentations is written by Max Atkinson, a well known public speaking trainer in the UK.

This book is aimed is particularly suited for speakers who are seeking to improve their presentations - rather than those who simply want to overcome their fear of public speaking. In fact, several Amazon.co.uk readers who have given this book high ratings appear to be experienced in public speaking already.

According to Max Atkinson, his approach differs from many others in two ways:

First, his advice is based on what audiences actually like and dislike about different presentation methods. For example, many people are bored with talks based on reading bullet points from PowerPoint slides.

Second, he explores how to make good use of language and rhetoric. You can choose words and techniques - like contrasts and analogies - that will help the audience understand your message better.

Lend Me Your Ears is divided into 5 sections.

Part 1 - The Language of Public Speaking
Part 2 - Visual Aids and Verbal Crutches
Part 3 - Winning with Words
Part 4 - Putting Principles into Practice
Part 5 - Body Language and Speech

There are 12 chapters, each ending in a conclusion and then a handy bullet-point summary. I found this very useful as I could start at the summary page and then work back to the detail to see what Max Atkinson said about a point in more detail.

This is a book I would recommend for people who have already given at least one presentation, are planning to give more, and are now looking to improve their effectiveness.

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