Best Seller
Miss Manners' Guide to Domestic Tranquility
Ebook
Published on Aug 10, 2011 | 384 Pages
America’s leading civility expert knocks household discourteousness off its foundations.
As the rudeness rampant in America’s streets sends its citizens fleeing inside to bolt the doors and draw the shades, they are finding what was once the relative safety of the hearth threatened by an unwelcome addition to their living space–the same rudeness presumably left behind when they stepped across their own cozy thresholds.
With the keen wit and insight that distinguishes her column and previous books, Judith Martin’s newest work equips residences everywhere with the tools to return manners to domestic life. Refusing to recognize that the harried household cannot meet her standards of propriety–especially since all households are now harried–Miss Manners explains how this is done.
Whether your family is nuclear, blended, extended, or unrelated; whether you are single, divorced, living together, or married; at a family dinner or dinner party; engaged in combat with the neighbors or with the relatives–there is simply no substitute for the core of civility that must reside at the heart of every house, condo or apartment if it is truly to be a home.
Miss Manners is prepared to sweep through your house and get rid of those lurking traces of rudeness that you were pretending not to notice.
You know you are not going to be able to enjoy a pleasant and peaceful household until these few chores are done.
Table of Contents
Chapter One–The People
Allotting due space and respect to parents, children, roommates, relatives–and whoever those
other people are whom one of them must have brought home
Chapter Two–The Place
Making use of the rooms instead of turning them into a mess or a museum, while everybody huddles upstairs
Chapter Three–The Rules
Negotiating compromises without having to leave home for Domestic Dispute Court
Chapter Four–The System
Keeping track of where everybody is, where they are supposed to be, and what they are supposed to be doing (if they remember)
Chapter Five–The Help
Getting the housework done when you can’t complain about the Servant Problem–because theservants are you and the people in the phone book who may be there sometime today
Chapter Six–The Visitors
Offering hospitality without surrendering your privacy or your resources to the thankless
Chapter Seven–Entertaining: The Social Contract
Reviving the art of not-for-profit entertaining to make friends who will love you for yourself
Chapter Eight–Entertaining: The Social Event
Learning to give a variety of parties, formal and informal–because it beats staying home alone watching TV
Chapter Nine–Entertaining: The Relatives
Kindling warm memories rather than heated conflict at family occasions
Chapter Ten–The Community
Being pleasant enough to the neighbors so you’re not afraid to walk out your own front door
As the rudeness rampant in America’s streets sends its citizens fleeing inside to bolt the doors and draw the shades, they are finding what was once the relative safety of the hearth threatened by an unwelcome addition to their living space–the same rudeness presumably left behind when they stepped across their own cozy thresholds.
With the keen wit and insight that distinguishes her column and previous books, Judith Martin’s newest work equips residences everywhere with the tools to return manners to domestic life. Refusing to recognize that the harried household cannot meet her standards of propriety–especially since all households are now harried–Miss Manners explains how this is done.
Whether your family is nuclear, blended, extended, or unrelated; whether you are single, divorced, living together, or married; at a family dinner or dinner party; engaged in combat with the neighbors or with the relatives–there is simply no substitute for the core of civility that must reside at the heart of every house, condo or apartment if it is truly to be a home.
Miss Manners is prepared to sweep through your house and get rid of those lurking traces of rudeness that you were pretending not to notice.
You know you are not going to be able to enjoy a pleasant and peaceful household until these few chores are done.
Table of Contents
Chapter One–The People
Allotting due space and respect to parents, children, roommates, relatives–and whoever those
other people are whom one of them must have brought home
Chapter Two–The Place
Making use of the rooms instead of turning them into a mess or a museum, while everybody huddles upstairs
Chapter Three–The Rules
Negotiating compromises without having to leave home for Domestic Dispute Court
Chapter Four–The System
Keeping track of where everybody is, where they are supposed to be, and what they are supposed to be doing (if they remember)
Chapter Five–The Help
Getting the housework done when you can’t complain about the Servant Problem–because theservants are you and the people in the phone book who may be there sometime today
Chapter Six–The Visitors
Offering hospitality without surrendering your privacy or your resources to the thankless
Chapter Seven–Entertaining: The Social Contract
Reviving the art of not-for-profit entertaining to make friends who will love you for yourself
Chapter Eight–Entertaining: The Social Event
Learning to give a variety of parties, formal and informal–because it beats staying home alone watching TV
Chapter Nine–Entertaining: The Relatives
Kindling warm memories rather than heated conflict at family occasions
Chapter Ten–The Community
Being pleasant enough to the neighbors so you’re not afraid to walk out your own front door
Author
Judith Martin
Born a perfect lady in an imperfect society, Miss Manners considers it her duty and privilege to lead the way to a more civilized and possibly even pleasant society.In her Miss Manners column, distributed by newspapers nationwide by United Features Syndicate since 1978, Judith Martin answers questions on etiquette three times a week. As readers accept her view of life as a comedy of manners, they have increasingly sent her not only their table and party questions, but those involving the more complicated aspects of life romance, work, family relationships, and child-rearing.In contrast to Miss Manners, but with her indulgence, Mrs. Martin is also a novelist, journalist, lecturer and frequent guest on national television and radio shows. She recently presided over her own PBS television special, “Miss Manners and Company.”She has been called, by George F. Will, “the National Bureau of Standards.” Mrs. Martin gives advice, in the words of People magazine, “as if she had access to the stone tablets that Moses mislaid.” Miss Manners explains the etiquette element that can be found in just about every aspect of life.Born in Washington, D.C. and reared there and in foreign capitals, Mrs. Martin spent 25 years at the Washington Post, where she covered social life at the White House, embassies, and the zoo, before becoming a film and drama critic. A graduate of Wellesley College, Mrs. Martin has been awarded several honorary degrees.Mrs. Martin is a member of the Editorial Board of The American Scholar, the Board of Directors of the Washington Concert Opera, the National Advisory Council of the Institute of Governmental Studies of the University of California at Berkeley and the Board of Management at the Cosmos Club. Judith Martin and her husband, a scientist and playwright, live in Washington, D.C. They have two perfect children.
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