A wake-up call: Courtesy counts

This book doesn't tell you which fork to use when. It's not a doorstop-sized guide to the abstrusities of etiquette. It's a call for courtesy in an interconnected world. If, for example, I stand in the off-leash dog park talking loudly on my cell phone, which causes me to ignore the bullying behavior of my dog, which causes the owner of the picked-on dog to leave sooner than planned, which causes that owner to arrive home feeling unrefreshed and irritable, which causes him to snap at his wife, which causes her to spend the evening watching TV downstairs while he watches TV upstairs, I have set in motion a chain of unpleasantness that could have been prevented if I had acted with courtesy at the park. Good manners, the author points out, begin with the understanding that although you are important in the universe's grand scheme, so is everyone else. This is a much better book than the gushy back-jacket testimonial from Elle magazine ("She's a genius at how to live") might lead you to believe. At times the author emphasizes overmuch that she is youngish and hip. Her occasional use of profanity is jarring. But she has something important to say here, and she says it well.