Charm, Stephen Bayley
Charm, Stephen Bayley
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Charm

Author: Stephen Bayley

Narrator: Stephen Bayley

Unabridged: 2 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/13/2014


Synopsis

An informative, fun and rather charming essay on the nature and history of one of life’s most desirable assets, Charm, by renowned culture and design critic, Stephen Bayley. Aiming to wound, a schoolmaster wrote on future design-guru Stephen Bayley’s last ever school report “Charm alone will not get him through”. Bayley took this to mean that an affable, genial, outgoing nature was not enough to ensure survival in a harsh world of statistical performance. But survive and flourish is exactly what Bayley did and now he aims to define Charm by looking at its origins and meanings throughout history and in the modern age.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard

This essay is gracefully written but loses charm when equating charm to (male) seduction. No mention is made of the origin of the word and its meanings in French. Of course charm is elusive so you can only circle around it and Bayley does this in a pleasing and entertaining way. It is more a (mostly......more

Do you think you're charming? Well, I'm not, considering that I can have an abrasive personality. Do I think that this book is charming? Well, to put it bluntly, no. Charm is supposed to be a book on charm - what it is and what its history has been. Unfortunately, it suffers from one serious problem:......more


Quotes

‘Stephen Bayley can charm your pants off – he charmed mine off, then returned them dry-cleaned and pressed; read on at the peril of extreme pleasure …’ Will Self