Body Language

Written in 1970, it's a foundational book in the subject of body language. It's also a great case study on how to make a million dollars from an instructional book without having to do any research.Fast has a pattern with every chapter. He starts with amusing anecdote, then quotes a book of research that someone else has done, and then dedicates that chapter to the book of research.It answers questions like, "Why don't we talk to each other in elevators?" And many more.One of the things I wanted to figure out by reading this book is if it was better than one of my favorite books, "Emotions Revealed" by Daniel Goleman, about facial movements being indicators of emotions. I was disappointed, kind of, that I couldn't answer this question, because one of the chapters is based on the early research of Golemen and how he had just started to test his theories with Australian aborigines.I really liked chapter 9, the chapter on eye contact. I think everyone should at least read that chapter. Here's an excerpt:"In the subway or bus where long rides in very close circumstances are a necessity, we may be hard put to find some way of not staring. We sneak glances, but look away before our eyes can lock. Or we look with an unfocused mouth, the body--for any place but the eyes is an acceptable looking spot for the unfocused glance.""If our eyes do meet we can sometimes mitigate the message with a brief smile. The smile must not be too long or too obvious. It must say, "I am sorry we have looked, but we both know it was an accident."

Always loved it

You will not understand body language by reading this particular book.You will understand how much there is to reading a stranger’s body language.I was begging for more examples of body language by the end of this book. The author quotes other doctors work and then dedicates an entire chapter on the interpretation of said doctors work. Never really writing about what a particular body language pattern could mean; just that you have to understand the context of the conversation too. (Makes sense but I guess I was looking for examples) - "Crossed legs can be a clue to an emotional state at the moment, but they may also mean nothing at all" - you have to take the context of the entire conversation - BOOM SEND ME eight dollars please !!!

ok

I really liked the way the author broke down the elements and illuminated the supportive data of each topic area! Book is hard to put down as he applies each topic into scenarios because it certainly relates you into them and makes you think and become more self aware of your own body language!

The message is clear, but the book is poorly written. The writer seems to be filling in space with nonsense talk. For this, I blame the editor for allowing this book to come to print.

Great examples on how to read peoples body language. For instance how do you eat dinner? do you eat one item at a time and then go to the next. Do you eat a little bit of everyting. Do you mix the food up? You can tell alot about some one on how they eat. That is why some executives take their clients out to eat.

This book contains long-winded descriptions of a wide array of expressed body languages but fails to derive any tangible purpose for knowing them and draws no valuable conclusions about how to apply the information.

J'ai ré-acheté ce livre que j'avais lu au cours des années 70s. Evidemment, ça a pas mal vieilli mais je suis content qu'il ait sa place dans ma bibliothèque.

Excellent Product and prompt delivery.

Good introduction into this topic. It's surprising how much communication is happening when no one is talking. Learned alot.RM

This is the first book I ever read on body language and I am glad that it was. It provides a very clear understanding of the main themes, although it may be a little dated it is still relevant. It gives the very basis for a good beginning in this field and is well worth reading.

The book promises a lot, but after reading it all you get more or less this summary:. Body language is very important in communications. It's also too difficult to interpret for such a sort bookIt's just too long for what it delivers and the "american way" in wich it's written can let down to many readers. What I mean with that is that is full of examples like: My friend Mike which is very good... or Dr Whatshell did this experiment. It looks like it extrapolate of some examples to the whole, not giving lots of credibility to the whole book.