Peter Post (1)

This book is helpful enough that you should buy a copy and expect to refer to it occasionally. Where it helped me the most is the etiquette of tipping. On one of my last dates, I was annoyed at the waiter's insufficiently attentive service, so I wanted to withhold any tip. My date insisted I tip him just because of servers' negligible pay. I did what she wanted, and eventually learned from this book that I was wrong and she was right; waiters and other people giving service should be tipped show more something whether they give good service or not, and the well-mannered response to poor service is to give a smaller tip. show less

I didn't learn much from this book, and I think that's a good thing. It did, however, make me completely prepared for a bunch of situations I'll never be involved in. Notably missing advice on etiquette for keggers.

You should read this at least once in case there's anything you don't already know, but if you're a conscientious person, you're probably already doing everything in it. A lot of the obvious.

If you're trying to make your husband, boyfriend, friend, brother, etc a little more sophisticated and refined, this is a good start.