@font-face { font-family: "Times"; }@font-face { font-family: "Geneva"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; color: black; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } "Razory-wicked, fun...each of [Alford's] stories are like those 'tiny acts of grace' brightening your day." - Kirkus ReviewsEveryone knows bad manners when we see them. But what do good manners look like in our day and age? Troubled by the absence of good manners in his day-to-day life-by the people who clip their toenails on the subway, Henry Alford embarks on a journey to find out how things might look if people were on their best behavior a tad more often. He travels to Japan to observe its culture of collective politesse. He interviews etiquette experts both likely (Judith Martin, Tim Gunn) and unlikely (a former prisoner, an army sergeant). He plays a game called Touch the Waiter. And he volunteers himself as a tour guide to foreigners visiting New York City in order to do ground-level reconnaissance on cultural manners divides. In this illuminating and seriously entertaining book, Alford tackles the etiquette questions specific to our age-such as: Why shouldn't you ask a cab driver where's he's from?Why is posting baby pictures on Facebook a fraught activity? What's the problem with "No problem"?WOULD IT KILL YOU TO STOP DOING THAT is a wry and warm way into a subject that has sometimes been seen as pedantic or elitist, and an accessible guide on how we can simply treat each other better.
