"Talk to the hand" by Lynne Truss - Anyone else competely agree with this?

[Mo2]

After being a big fan of 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' DH got me this for Christmas, and although I think it clearly a 'second book' (i.e. she was under pressure to write another book) it nevertheless has struck some cords with me... and I've started to realise I feel the same way about a lot of life's rudeness...

Anyone else reading/ read it?

.. opps... I meant 'chords' of course...

I read it and tend to agree with her. I thought she was a little rude herself in calling people with children , 'Breeders' though

MB - yes! I thought that... also think she comes across as a bit more of a 'grumpy old spinster' than I'd imagined!

what does it say?

In essence, people are rude, and shouldn't be.

She also makes some valid ppoints about people not controling their children in social situations, but is rather offhand about parenrs as a whole, calling them breeders, which I thoiught rather rude in itself.

The book was really an overlong pamphlet, IMHO

Sounds like she's a miserable ole infantaphobe.

Hmm - yes she does come across as a bit out of touch with kids, but that isn't really what I was saying. I think her observations around the fact that the universal response to just about any sort of unexpected comment is "eff off" is pretty true these days...
She also talks a lot about how sad it is that people seem to exist in their own little 'bubble' and yet are perfectly happy to have 'public' mobile phone conversations about the most private things...

Lots of observations about the demise of polite, respectful, deferential society.....

I haven't read this book but she does strike me as a bit curmudgeonly and a bit intolerant of anyone who doesn't live by her standards?

I agree that she makes some valid point, for example telling someone that their child has dropped some litter would have, in the past ended up with the child picking up the litter, wheras now the answer is often Eff off.

I just didn't think that she had quite enough valid points for a whole book.

I got this book for christmas and just started it so it is interesting discussion. For years I said, I should write a book about the decline of civil society but of course someone went ahead and did it. Rudenss is a big thing with me so I am sure I will enjoy this book. We can have different standards for behavoir but we all know when we are being rude.

Someone pointed out to me that in "Eats, Shoot and Leaves" there are 6 punctuation errors. Apparently. So she can stick that up her pedantic, child-hating bot.

There was an interesting thread about how foreigners perceive our politeness as insincere a while ago.

So it's interesting to see that while we're all wailing about the decline of manners in todays society, the rest of the world still think we're a bunch of insincere liars for never telling the truth when somebody asks us how we are.

Well, finished the book and very disappointed. It was really not very insightful. Just a bunch of rudeness stories and a few quotes. I found it confusing and I think it was because she really wasn't clear about what her point was. Yes, rudeness is bad, we could all write a book about that but I was hoping for something a little deeper. She didn't come off as overly bright or insightful in this book which may do her a disservice but I have no desire to read her first book now.

To be honest, she seemed like someone who spends too much time alone and a bit rude herself. I kept feeling like I would nto want her behind me in a queque harumphing and complaining.