What She Said: #1 Award Winner: The Art of Inspiring Action through Speech

by Monica Lunin

**Winner of the Communications and Sales Book of the Year and Winner of Cover Design at the Australian Business Book Awards 2022**

Learn how spoken words can change a mind, a community and the world with this collection of remarkable speeches by women What She Said is an inspiring collection of speeches from passionate and persuasive women from around the world and throughout history. The included speakers come from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds, ages, and education levels, demonstrating how women from all walks of life can use the power of speech to bring change. Author Monica Lunin has curated and analysed 40 of the greatest speeches made by strong and empowering women from all around the world. From Queen Elizabeth I to Maya Angelou, Greta Thunberg, Julia Gillard, and Michelle Obama, What She Said shows not only what was said but also how the speech worked and why it was effective. In this insightful exploration of female wit, persuasion, and leadership, you’ll find an extract of the speech, a biography of the speaker and a breakdown of the qualities that made it so remarkable. You’ll learn how these Across 10 chapters, each representing a different theme―from inspiration to activism to storytelling― What She Said will teach you to harness and leverage the power of the spoken word, offering the voices and tools to help you bring about the change you want to see in your world.  

Genres: Nonfiction

416 pages, Paperback

Published March 8, 2022

Reviews

[Kylie Bowie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read this right through twice and I’ve picked it up many times and just flicked to a random page. It is incredibly inspiring. I can always find words from an amazing woman in a tough situation. Highly recommend.

[Jill Gilchrist · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me as a Distinguished Toastmaster ‘What She Said’ is an excellent reference book for supporting the delivery of educational’s on the creation of a successful speech structure. Monica Lunin has studied forty speeches delivered by famous women who have used their voice to bring about change and then gone on to break that speech down to teach the reader how and why it had the impact it did. My shelves are full of books on speeches by famous men which do not show how they achieved the success of that written speech. Therefore finding a book that focuses on famous woman and their speeches is a must for me to have on my shelf as a reference book. Monica has then used a wonderful fresh concept within the same book of digging in to explain why and how that speech was structured to achieve the desired result, this is brilliant. The lay out of the book itself separating chapters to achieve the different reasons for the written speeches i.e inspiration, humour, story, guidance, advice etc; allows the reader to focus on structuring these type of speeches in the creation of their own script. This book is a must for all in the field of Public Speaking.
Pauline Gilchrist DTM

[pixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really liked the speech by Brene Brown but I feel like I expected to be changed or u spired by this book and Brene is the only one who accomplished that… I think the target audience wasn’t considered for the speeches and the analysis of the speeches could have been better if it pointed out specific literary devices such as polysyndeton, metaphor, et cetera. It did point out some devices but an annotation overlay with a side bit about why the key devices are impactful would have been more powerful.

The speeches themselves aren’t bad, they’re just not for me. All the author did was collect other people’s words and half-ass annotating them.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great read for all those starting out in the corporate world. While the target market may seem to be women, everyone will benefit from the practical advice devised from insightful analysis of the some of the greatest speeches (known and unknown) in history by women.

Communication is a key skill as you travel through your working life. The ability to communicate to people and clearly articulate your message is an atomic habit that this book will help you develop.

[Amber · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5⭐️⭐️⭐️
Such a powerful book, but so challenging to read 😅
And not because it wasn’t well written but because there is a lot of content to unpack around gender, equality, love, peace, freedom, consent, leadership.