Charlotte Allen: "An Etiquette Guide for the Imperfect Among Us"
Charlotte Allen, who's a friend and a truly smart and insightful writer I have a lot of respect for, posted a wonderful review of my book in The Weekly Standard. Here's the beginning:
Amy Alkon, Los Angeles-based syndicated advice columnist ("Advice Goddess") and author of Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (St. Martin's Griffin), is a friend of mine, so this is a plug, not a review. But even if this were a review because I didn't know Amy, it would read like a plug anyway. Her previous manners book, I See Rude People (2009), got rave blurbs from Elmore Leonard and Harold Bloom. I'm not in the same league as either of those, but I can say without reservation that Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck is hilarious, consistently entertaining, and, above all, wise. It's Emily Post as a beach read.Unlike Post, though, Amy doesn't pretend to know, much less dispense advice about, the finer points of formal etiquette. In her opening chapter, titled "I Don't Care Where You Put the Fork (as long as you don't stab anybody in the eye with it)," she confesses: "I do have a grasp on certain table manner basics, like that you shouldn't lick your plate clean unless there's a power outage or you're dining with the blind, but I'm basically as domestic as a golden retriever." But as she points out: "What really matters isn't how you set the table or serve the turkey but whether you're nice to people while you're doing it." Her book, she writes, is "for people like me, who are well-meaning but imperfect...who sometimes swear (and maybe even enjoy it) but take care not to do it around anybody's great-aunt or four-year-old"...
If you haven't bought my book already, please consider buying it (only $9.48 at Amazon!). Orders of the book (new copies, that is) help support my writing. I'm now working on my next book and continuing the solid sales of this book will help me sell the next one.
A quote from it -- from my Pinterest page of mostly funny quotes from the book, which I'm continuing to post:
"Her previous manners book, I See Rude People (2009), got rave blurbs from Elmore Leonard and Harold Bloom."
Either Charlotte Allen goofed or someone else did. Amazon says it was "paleopsychologist Howard Bloom, author of The Lucifer Principle." The blurb: "Amy Alkon is intellectually promiscuous--and funny as hell."
(I'm betting it was Allen who goofed - it's hard to imagine Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, reading 21st-century humor. Well, maybe a manners book. Still, it makes more sense that it would be a psychologist - and rock publicist, to boot - who read Amy's book. Besides, Howard Bloom is 13 years younger than Harold.)
lenona at July 19, 2014 9:23 AM
I Don't Care Where You Put the Fork (as long as you don't stab anybody in the eye with it)
There you go, spoiling all my fun...
I R A Darth Aggie at July 19, 2014 11:43 AM
Just bought the book. Very belated congrats Amy.
Can't wait to read it. Seems like just yesterday you were writing this.
feebie at July 19, 2014 6:45 PM
I loved it, Feebs! Couldn't put it down to save my life!
Flynne at July 20, 2014 8:16 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/07/19/charlotte_allen_1.html#comment-4862336">comment from FlynneThank you so much, Flynne, Feebs!
Please consider posting reviews (if it's not a big deal to do that!).
Amy Alkon at July 20, 2014 8:29 AM
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