Book picks similar to
Miss Manners' Basic Training: The Right Thing to Say by Judith Martin
etiquette
non-fiction
self-help
nonfiction
He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
Greg Behrendt - 2004
For ages women have come together over coffee, cocktails, or late-night phone chats to analyze the puzzling behavior of men. Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo are here to say that despite good intentions you're wasting your time. Men are not complicated, although they'd like you to think they are. And there are no mixed messages. He's Just Not That Into You based on a popular episode of Sex and the City educates otherwise smart women on how to tell when a guy just doesn't like them enough, so they can stop wasting time making excuses for a dead-end relationship. This book knows you're a beautiful, smart, funny woman who deserves better.
Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct
P.M. Forni - 2002
In Choosing Civility, P. M. Forni identifies the twenty-five rules that are most essential in connecting effectively and happily with others. In clear, witty, and, well...civilized language, Forni covers topics that include:* Think Twice Before Asking Favors* Give Constructive Criticism* Refrain from Idle Complaints* Respect Others' Opinions* Don't Shift Responsibility and Blame* Care for Your Guests * Accept and Give PraiseFinally, Forni provides examples of how to put each rule into practice and so make life-and the lives of others-more enjoyable, companionable, and rewarding.Choosing Civility is a simple, practical, perfectly measured, and quietly magical handbook on the lost art of civility and compassion."Insightful meditation on how changing the way we think can improve our daily lives. ... A deft exploration that urges us to think before speaking." --Kirkus, Starred Review
Kiss My Tiara: How to Rule the World as a SmartMouth Goddess
Susan Jane Gilman - 2001
Gilman serves up advice on everything from sex to politics.
The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing Little and Feeling Great
Ray Bennett - 2006
Turn it down a notch. Get off the Stairmaster. The Underachiever's Manifesto is the playfully persuasive pocket guide to living life to the least and loving it. With sharp humor and genuine wisdom, this welcome little book extols the fabulous benefits of underachievement in our overextended society. A witty introduction makes the case for the right amount of efforta lot less than we've been led to believe. Ten principles of underachievement establish the basics (#8: The tallest blade of grass is the surest to be cut); and practical applications show how mediocrity is the key to happiness at work, in relationships, dieting, exercise, investment, and more. Devilishly enlisting examples from philosophy, economics, science, and good common sense, The Underachiever's Manifesto is a lighthearted, life-changing rallying call for those who dare to do less and enjoy more.
The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity
Carlo M. Cipolla - 1976
It is more powerful than the Mafia or the military. It has global catastrophic effects and can be found anywhere from the world's most powerful boardrooms to your local pub. This is the immensely powerful force of human stupidity.Seeing the shambolic state of human affairs, and sensing the dark force at work behind it, Carlo M. Cipolla, the late, noted professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley, created a vitally important economic model that would allow us to detect, know, and neutralize this threat: The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity.If you've ever found yourself despairing at the ubiquity of stupidity among even the most 'intellectual' of people, then this hilarious, timely, and slightly alarming little book is for you. Arm yourself in the face of baffling political realities, unreasonable colleagues, or the unbridled misery of Christmas day with the in-laws with the first and only economic model for stupidity."Cipolla's subtle tongue-in-cheek humor made this book an underground classic in Italy. Today, under current worldwide political trends, it reads more like black humor. Keep in mind: reliable statistical data shows that 98% of the people seriously believe that they are far less stupid than the average." --Carlo Rovelli, author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the English
Sarah Lyall - 2008
She’s since returned to the United States, but this distillation of incisive—and irreverent—insights, now updated with a new preface, is just as illuminating today. And perhaps even more so, in the wake of Brexit and the attendant national identity crisis.While there may be no easy answer to the question of how, exactly, to understand the English, The Anglo Files—part anthropological field study, part memoir—helps point the way.
What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People
Joe Navarro - 2008
Is it?She says she agrees. Does she?The interview went great - or did it?He said he'd never do it again. But he did.Read this book and send your nonverbal intelligence soaring. Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to "speed-read" people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You'll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you. You will discover:The ancient survival instincts that drive body languageWhy the face is the least likely place to gauge a person's true feelingsWhat thumbs, feet, and eyelids reveal about moods and motivesThe most powerful behaviors that reveal our confidence and true sentimentsSimple nonverbals that instantly establish trustSimple nonverbals that instantly communicate authorityFilled with examples from Navarro's professional experience, this definitive book offers a powerful new way to navigate your world.
Sociology: A Practical Understanding of Why We Do What We Do: Social Psychology (Applied Psychology, Positive Psychology)
Jonny Bell - 2014
What exactly makes us tick? For many people, the question may have only popped up in their heads from time to time, though it’s not hard to imagine such a question has also led to many a sleepless night as some naturally curious people are very often compelled to wonder.Whether you belong to the first or the second group of people, wonder no more as this book will provide you the answer to the question “Why do we do what we do?” Through extensive, detailed, and well-researched facts and other information, Sociology: A Practical Understanding of Why We Do What We Do aims to explain the uniqueness of human behavior as well as the tendency of people to act the way they act under different circumstances—either driven by instinct or after much thought—despite the notion of free will which is perhaps the one thing that separates us from all other living creatures.Yes, we human beings are still free to act as we please, but considering the growing influence of our surroundings, it may be surprising to know just how much freedom we get to exercise in any given situation (though that’s not necessarily a bad thing as this book will also explain).
How to Be a Person in the World: Ask Polly's Guide Through the Paradoxes of Modern Life
Heather Havrilesky - 2016
Whether she’s responding to cheaters or loners, lovers or haters, the depressed or the down-and-out, Havrilesky writes with equal parts grace, humor, and compassion to remind you that even in your darkest moments you’re not alone.
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace
Anne Lamott - 2014
It’s an approach that has become her trademark. Now in Small Victories, Lamott offers a new message of hope that celebrates the triumph of light over the darkness in our lives. Our victories over hardship and pain may seem small, she writes, but they change us—our perceptions, our perspectives, and our lives. Lamott writes of forgiveness, restoration, and transformation, how we can turn toward love even in the most hopeless situations, how we find the joy in getting lost and our amazement in finally being found.Profound and hilarious, honest and unexpected, the stories in Small Victories are proof that the human spirit is irrepressible.
Life Among the Savages
Shirley Jackson - 1953
But the writer possessed another side, one which is delightfully exposed in this hilariously charming memoir of her family's life in rural Vermont. Fans of Please Don't Eat the Daisies, Cheaper by the Dozen, and anything Erma Bombeck ever wrote will find much to recognize in Shirley Jackson's home and neighborhood: children who won't behave, cars that won't start, furnaces that break down, a pugnacious corner bully, household help that never stays, and a patient, capable husband who remains lovingly oblivious to the many thousands of things mothers and wives accomplish every single day."Our house," writes Jackson, "is old, noisy, and full. When we moved into it we had two children and about five thousand books; I expect that when we finally overflow and move out again we will have perhaps twenty children and easily half a million books." Jackson's literary talents are in evidence everywhere, as is her trenchant, unsentimental wit. Yet there is no mistaking the happiness and love in these pages, which are crowded with the raucous voices of an extraordinary family living a wonderfully ordinary life.
Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone
Beth Lisick - 2008
She is finally able to admit to herself that she's grown tired of embracing the same old set of nagging problems year after year. She has no savings account. Her house feels unorganized and chaotic. She and her husband never hang out together. The last time she exercised regularly was as a member of her high school track team almost twenty years ago.Instead of turning to advice from the abundant pool of local life coaches, therapists, and healers readily available on her home turf of northern California, Beth confronts her fears head-on. She consults the multimillion-dollar-earning pros and national experts, not only reading their bestselling books but also attending their seminars and classes. In Chicago, she gets proactive with The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. In Atlanta, she tries to get a handle on exactly why "women are from Venus," and in a highly comedic bout on the high seas of the Caribbean, she gamely sweats to the oldies on a weeklong Cruise to Lose with Richard Simmons.Throughout this yearlong experiment, Beth tries extremely hard to maintain her wry sense of humor and easygoing nature, even as she starts to fall prey to some of the experts' ideas, ideas she thought she'd spent her whole life rejecting. Beth doesn't think of herself as the typical self-help victim. But is she?
250 Things You Should Know About Writing
Chuck Wendig - 2011
Let’s just go ahead and call that, “25 bonus tips,” shall we? Boom. Value added.)The book features sections such as:“The Transubstantiation of Trope,” “Why Bad Decisions Are A Good Decision,” “Nobody Sees Themselves As A Supporting Character,” "I Want To Buy The Semi-Colon A Private Sex Island," and “Plot Is Promise.”Contained within are things you should know about plot holes, self-publishing versus legacy publishing, "on-the-nose" dialogue, story versus plot, metaphors, copy-editing, killing darlings with a claw hammer, cursing like an undead pirate, and generally being a cranky and irreverent creative type.
How Not to Be a Dick: An Everyday Etiquette Guide
Meghan Doherty - 2013
On the other hand, dicks are everywhere! They cut in line, talk behind our backs, recline into our seats, and even have the power to morph into trolls online. Their powers are impressive, but with a little foresight and thoughtfulness, we can take a stand against dickishness today. How Not to Be a Dick is packed with honest and straightforward advice, but it also includes playful illustrations showing two well-meaning (but not always well behaved) young people as they confront moments of potential dickishness in their everyday lives. Sometimes they falter, sometimes they triumph, but they always seek to find a better way. And with their help, you can too.
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't
Robert I. Sutton - 2007
Sutton addressed a taboo topic that affects every workplace: employees who are insensitive to their colleagues, corporate bullies, bosses who just don't get it, the kind of people who make you exclaim in exasperation, "What an asshole!"Now, in a definitive book that addresses this growing problem, Sutton shows you how you can work with unsavory people without becoming one of them yourself.