Confessions of a Public Speaker

Scott Berkun has been giving talks for years, and Confessions of a Public Speaker is his attempt to write a book about it that doesn’t pretend the work is more glamorous than it is. The book is part craft guide, part memoir, and part collection of war stories from gigs that went wrong.

Berkun covers the basic mechanics, including how to handle nervousness, how to structure a talk, how to deal with hostile audiences and broken microphones. The chapters are short and the tone is conversational.

What sets the book apart is his honesty about how often he himself has bombed, what bombing teaches you, and why the conventional speaker advice often misses the actual problems speakers face.

For anyone who has to give talks regularly, or who gets asked to speak occasionally and dreads it, this is one of the most useful books available. Pair it with Talk Like TED for a more polished but less honest companion.