Natural Speaker, The (6th Edition) (MySpeechKit Series)

I've read a lot of communication textbooks over the years since I'm a professor in the field. This is one of the best. Professor Fujishin exudes the passion he talks about in the final two chapters of this book. He is passionate about the topic, the audience (in this case his readers), and he has a healthy self-esteem. All three are necessary for connecting with an audience in a meaningful way, he explains.

The author stresses ethics throughout the whole book. It is filled with inspiring quotes. His points are illustrated by anecdotes and personal insights from himself and people he's known.

I get the impression that he is truly a nice guy.
That comes across in his writing. It's like I know him after reading his book. He touched me to that extend.

Now, having said all those positive things, I do have a couple of ideas for improvement. First his citations are weak. In the text he identifies such well known poeple as Abraham
Maslow and Alan Monroe, but in most places he talks about "a study." Curious readers want to know "which study." How about a bibliography at the end of each chapter? Another odd thing I found was the fact that he seems to be a Christian who is afraid to mention the Name of Jesus. Why do I get that impression? He cites names of leaders of all kinds of other religions. He even quotes the Bible and talks several times about preachers and church, but there's never a mention of the Name. Just an interesting observation I picked up on.

Overall this is a great book. It emphasizes the importance of relationships. Communication is about being "other centered" and the author is a master at following the advice he's advocating.

This book is my most favorite "textbook" since I returned to school to get my AA. This book is not like the traditional textbook-it doesn't put you to sleep after the first 3 pages. Each chapter starts off with a short story that applies to the concepts taught in the chapter. Very amusing stories. After the concept is introduced, the information is broken down into subtopics that are reasonably short. I think this helps the flow of the book. Models are included in the text so if your instructor wants an outline, for example, you have one in the text to refer to. The reading of this book is smooth and easy. I sold my original copy back to my school's bookstore and now I am regretting it. For someone who is working on an AA in speech communication, I'm looking to buy this book again to help me prepare future speeches.