Table Topics is the impromptu speaking part of a Toastmasters club meeting. Members each are asked a question and then answer via a one-to-two minute off-the-cuff speech. On May 15, 2024 I blogged about My workshop presentation at the 2024 District 15 Toastmasters Conference on May 18, 2024 about Creating or Finding Great Table Topics Questions. In that post I described how great questions often are found under other phrases than just ”Table Topics Questions.”
A section of the appendix in the 2025 book by Alison Wood Brooks titled Talk: The science of conversation and the art of being ourselves beginning on page 265 is titled Some Topics to Try. On pages 267 to 269 she lists Fifty Topics That You Could Raise With Anyone:
[01] What do you do for work? What do you like about it?
[02] What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
[03] Did you do any sports or clubs in high school?
[04] Why do you participate in online studies?
[05] Do you have any plans for the weekend?
[06] What’s something random about you?
[07] Have you read anything interesting recently?
[08] Have you tried anything new recently that was particularly fun?
[09] Are you a religious person? Why?
[10] What games have you played in the past that are most memorable?
[11] What is your favorite kind of music?
[12] How do you most enjoy spending time with your family?
[13] Do you have any fruit trees, plants, or a garden?
[14] What’s your favorite movie?
[15] Do you have any plans for the rest of the day?
[16] Do you like where you live or do you want to move?
[17] Do you travel much?
[18] What do you enjoy doing when the weather is beautiful?
[19] Do you have a favorite type of food?
[20] For what in your life are you most grateful? Why?
[21] What was an embarrassing moment in your life?
[22] What’s the strangest thing about where you grew up?
[23] Who is the luckiest person you know? Why?
[24] If you could teleport by blinking your eyes, where would you go right now?
[25] What is the last professional sports game or match you watched?
[26] What is the last concert you attended? Why?
[27] If you had to perform music in front of a crowd, what would you do?
[28] What TV show have you watched recently?
[29] What’s the cutest thing you’ve seen a baby or child do?
[30] Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
[31] Would you like to be famous? In what way?
[32] Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
[33] What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?
[34] When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
[35] If you were able to live to age of ninety and retain either the mind or body of a thirty-year-old for the last sixty years of your life, which would you want?
[36] Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
[37] If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
[38] If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
[39] Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
[40] What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
[41] What do you value most in a friendship?
[42] If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you now are living? Why?
[43] What does friendship mean to you?
[44] How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
[45] How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
[46] When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
[47] What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
[48] If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
[49] Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item, what would it be? Why?
[50] Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
Also, on page 270 she lists her Ten Go-To Topics to Raise with Strangers:
{01} What are you excited about lately?
{02} What is something you’re good at but don’t like doing?
{03} What’s something you’re bad at but love to do?
{04} Is there something you’d like to learn more about?
{05} Is there something you’d like to learn how to do?
{06} What can we celebrate about you?
{07} Has someone made you laugh recently? What happened?
{08} What is something cute your {kid/friend/pet/partner} has been doing recently?
{09} Did you grow up in a city?
{10} Have you fallen in love with any new {music/books/movies/shows} lately?
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