Osgood on Speaking: How to Think on Your Feet Without Falling on Your Face

Taking the fear out of public speaking is the aim of this breezy book Osgood does have numerous suggestions to render the ordeal relatively painless. His suggestions are eminently practical: writing your notes beforehand, using wit instead of jokes, going to the bathroom before you get to the podium. He believes that reading written speeches is uniformly boring, that having one drink (but only one) will help you relax during your speech and that, if possible, you should test the acoustics of the room in which you are to speak.

A sequel to "Gone with the Wind."

Ripley's ultra-mega-hyped sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind spent 28 weeks on PW 's bestseller list while receiving uniformly dismal notices from the critics.