How to Work a Room: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections In Person and Online is a self-help book by Susan RoAne.[1][2][3][4][5] It was first published in 1988 as How to Work a Room: A Guide to Successfully Managing the Mingling.[6]
It is a guidebook on how to socialize at parties and other events, oriented towards the business community.[7][8] The 25th Anniversary edition[9][10] was published in 2013 by William Morrow Paperbacks. The book has sold over a million copies,[11] and was number one on Book-of-the-Month Club's list of best-selling nonfiction books in 1990.[12] RoAne spent six weeks writing the book.[13]
The book starts by outlining the benefits of socializing, and the problems typically encountered when doing so.[14][15] It then dismantles these problems one by one while offering practical advice using specific examples.[14] The text is oriented towards business people.[14][16][17][18]
The book has been in print since its publication and has gone through a number of revisions and reprints.[19]
David Brooks in The Wall Street Journal (1988) wrote a tongue-in-cheek review of the book as a guide for shallow and manipulative people who are otherwise not very interesting but wish to appear so.[20][21]
Paula Yee Sing-Edwards of Fast Company (2008) wrote that the book was "well written and pertinent" while being a "great read with great communication pointers."[22]