Customer Reviews

Etiquette

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

My main complaint is that it is impossible to use the kindle version of this book as a reference book as there is no navigation between chapters, nor is there a table of contents.

There is some valuable information in this book. Unfortunately, you have to wade through chapters on Teas, Debutantes, Country Houses, Balls, Club Etiquette, Position in the Community, Household Help and other subjects. The book was published in 2007, but there is no information about the edition date. I suspect it might be a soft cover of the 1922 edition. The book is over 400 pages of small print with no index and there is also no copyright date, which is puzzling. The book is an amusing look into the inner workings of "society", but not for people looking for a practical etiquette book.

While the book is chock full of detailed what to and not to do, the most impressive points to me were the explanations of why certain etiquettes exists. Putting heart in to what's usually regarded as a mental or social game, Ms. Post breathes a life of understanding into what otherwise would be a trite lexicon of customs. To the modern individual, it promotes ideas of selfless acts and words to create a better society, just be advised of the pitfalls of judgementalism, acts for the sake of routine, and false demeanor. Putting these latter three social sins aside, the book can be quite beneficial as well as enjoyable!

So glad this was a free book. With no way to navigate to a specific topic it is very difficult to use. The information is SO outdated that it is useful only as research of how people used to behave in "polite" society. Not at all realistic for today.

Know what you're getting into before reading this and you might like it. It's an older etiquette book and doesn't apply to many modern situations and certainly not to my life in general, but it was interesting to read.

This item is a practical book, that anyone interested in good old-fashioned etiquette would appreciate, especially in this fast and furious age of communication.

This Book is a disappointing presentation of Miss Post's guide to Doing the Right Thing. It's not formatted, as it's been scanned by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and printed without illustrations. It's just not pretty. As the book is still in print and this is not a rarity (the benefit of buying OCR books scanned from old musty gems) you should just go ahead and buy the newest edition. It'll be a much lovelier read.

This is a Kindle version of the original, 1920s version of Emily Post's Etiquette. I mostly downloaded it out of nostalgia: When I was a kid, there was a battered old copy of Etiquette in the basement of our house (possibly even left by the original occupants; the house was built in 1928). It got unearthed when I was about ten years old, and I read it voraciously. It was the 1980s, so it was incredibly outdated even then, but I loved it for the glimpse I got of upper-class life in the early twentieth century (it's filled with anecdotes and vivid "characters," so it's not just a dry list of rules). And I was reading old novels at the time, like those of L.M. Montgomery, so it shed some light on social customs that came up in those novels.

It also inspired me to, for a little while, start writing a (hilariously bad in retrospect) novel of my own about a family from the period. There were three daughters: one a debutante, one a little girl just graduating from the nursery, and one a sullen tween who was annoyed that no one was fussing over her! There was more of me in that last character than I admitted at the time. Emily Post's book made me want a debut of my own, and it irked me that I was too young and that hardly anybody threw debutante balls anymore anyway.

So, of course I downloaded it when I saw it was free on Kindle, and I reread it. A little bit of it is still applicable today. Most of it, though, is more of a look at how the wealthy lived in the 1920s and so could be useful to anyone who, like my former 10-year-old self, is reading or writing fiction set in the period. It's also something of a roman à clef; I wish there were a key somewhere that revealed who Mrs. Worldly, Mrs. Gilding, and their friends really were.

The downside of the Kindle edition is that the formatting of sample invitations, calling cards, etc. is absent. The upside is that it's much lighter than the print copy I remember!

This book lacks a table of contents which allows you to easily navigate the various topics. It is also horribly outdated and there is little, if any, advice on manners that is actually applicable to modern situations. However, parts of it are absolutely hilarious! If you want a good laugh (for free!), make sure to take a look at advice related to interactions between men and women. Although it is blatantly sexist, it is pretty amusing to page through.

The advice on etiquette was very eye opening. I enjoy this book but it is quite long. Definetely not your modern day read. But it is brilliant covering every topic from how to properly introduce two people two how to make polite conversation. Very insightful. Read it if your patient even if your not skim through it.