Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

By: Amy Alkon

Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie

Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

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 onslaught of rudeness we all encounter. To lead us through this this miasma of modern manners, syndicated columnist Amy Alkon - The Advice Goddess - gives us a new set of manners for our 21st-century lives. In chapters titled "The Telephone", "The Internet", "The Apology", and "Communicating", among others, Alkon maps out new rules that go beyond what fork to use to answer real questions we all have:

• When is it okay to phone somebody instead of emailing or texting? When is it rude?
• Why shouldn't you tweet about a guest at a private dinner party? Everybody knows privacy is dead, right?
• How do you shut the guy up in the pharmacy line with his cellphone on speaker?
• When is it right to approach somebody who's crying in public and when is it right to leave him alone?
• When should you unfriend somebody on Facebook and what do you say when she calls you on it?
• If you have an STD, when do you tell people, what do you say, and do you have to contact everyone you've ever had sex with?

Real advice for today 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).

©2014 Amy Alkon (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Love love love this author

OMG! As soon as I'm not driving I'm going to look for any other book she's ever written. She is hilarious, witty, brilliant… I'm sure if we lived in the same city would be best friends:). I wish every person in the universe would read this book!

Fun listen

Lots of chuckles. Hit on current 2014-15 social issues. Not a miss manners guide! good advice. Did not especially like reader's voice or intonation. She droned & timing was off. Glad i listened.

A good manners guide for nice jerks

This book acknowledges that we are capable of thinking and doing mean things, and suggests a better way. If you're into self help books and want to try something different, this is a no brained.

Fun and informative

This book was a lot of fun. Amy's ideas are well researched and delivered with charm. I was particularly drawn to her ideas about 'stranger hood' and gratitude. Having read many books in the field of neuroscience, I thought she did a great job of echoing the findings of greats like Sonja Lyubomirsky in an enchanting approachable way.

Thought Provokingly SPOT ON!

In an attempt to practice what I learned!
This book is full of helpful, insightful hints that bring attention to things we all should be doing to make our work and life spaces better!

My Opinion

I felt this book was a really good read with a great overall message. I like the way she mixes hard facts with experience. She would be an interesting person to meet.

Great

We all need to learn to live on this big planet, we all live here so why not treat everyone one like they are our neighbors.

F-ing Funny and Factual

After using every tactic in our arsenal to solve the problem of 6 piles of dog excrement that dotted our front lawn like landmines and greeted us each morning when we opened the front door, I purchased this book. When I say every tactic, I mean from calling the city, animal control, stuffing mailboxes with fliers quoting the city ordinances regarding responsible pet ownership, posting a sign in the middle of our yard (with attached plastic bags) imploring neighbors *PLEASE clean up after your dog!* (or horse?), and even doing night recon with our old lame bulldog, an airsoft gun and a spotlight. By the time I had to resort to a ludicrous, tacky, ridiculous, sign pleading with people to pick up their pet's poop from our manicured lawn, we had already had the F-bomb blitzkrieg behind closed doors, and were at the point of standing in our flower beds screaming like crazy people at any one that even walked by our house, including children on tricycles. Having to clean up after a pack of assorted sized dogs with assorted diets every effing morning, will do that to you -- even you gentle folk that think the F-bomb is the ultimate no-no spewed only from those with mouths like a sewer pipe. Did I get an answer? Yes and no; but I definitely laughed and lowered my blood pressure.

Alkon, who writes a syndicated advice column, actually offers some really good advice dealing with the tangles we get into living and working with those people that don't give a F*CK -- the ones that really need this book. The problems she tackles head-on include those not even on the horizon until the advent of electronics and social media, including how to re-act when you receive a text accompanied by a picture of an acquaintance's "zipperwurst". She is hilarious, clever, considerate, and grounded; but mostly she is blunt and fearless, empowering the reader to throw their shoulders back and take some power when dealing with any form of boorish, rude, impolite, inconsiderate, discourteous, insolent, people you still have to see every day. And sometimes she gives examples where the offender actually takes responsibility and ends up apologizing!

Like she says, you can be aggressive without being hostile. But it is a fine art facing an offender of civility if you don't have any desire to surround your property with an electrical razor wire fence, find a new job, or change churches after flipping the middle finger to a driver that cuts you off and realizing it was your Pastor. I don't want to stand out in my yard giving passer-by's the stink-eye, or hurling words my grandmother said, "only make you look unintelligent;" but neither do I want to keep a garbage can full of stinky dog poop in my garage until garbage day. I'm not holding my breath until I hear... "we're so sorry our Great Dane has been using your lawn as his toilet!" But, I do feel fortified with the might of right, the responsibility to live with civility and dignity, and the duty to enforce, with kindness, good manners. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Alkon tells you how to begin that quest...and does it with terrific style and humor.

The title lured me in!

The book is better than I expected. The author offers sound advice on how to handle many situations. It's certainly more relevant to the today's society than is Emily Post. Amy Alkon is like Judith Martin (Miss Manners) with a sense of humor. This book is funny while being serious. I definitely recommend it.

A MUST READ/LISTEN!!

I really really liked this book. It could change your life & your mind about how you deal with people & how you let them deal with you!