Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

Book excerpt: "Miss Manners with Fangs." —LA Weekly We live in a world that's very different from the one in which Emily Post came of age. Many of us who are nice (but who also sometimes say "f*ck") are frequently at a loss for guidelines about how to be a good person who deals effectively with the increasing onslaught of rudeness we all encounter. To lead us out of the miasma of modern mannerlessness, science-based and bitingly funny syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon rips the doily off the manners genre and gives us a new set of rules for our twenty-first century lives. With wit, style, and a dash of snark, Alkon explains that we now live in societies too big for our brains, lacking the constraints on bad behavior that we had in the small bands we evolved in. Alkon shows us how we can reimpose those constraints, how we can avoid being one of the rude, and how to stand up to those who are. Foregoing prissy advice on which utensil to use, Alkon answers the twenty-first century's most burning questions about manners, including: * Why do many people, especially those under forty, now find spontaneous phone calls rude? * What can you tape to your mailbox to stop dog walkers from letting their pooch violate your lawn? * How do you shut up the guy in the pharmacy line with his cellphone on speaker? * What small gift to your new neighbors might make them think twice about playing Metallica at 3 a.m.? Combining science with more than a touch of humor, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck is destined to give good old Emily a shove off the etiquette shelf (if that's not too rude to say).