Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

When did the world stop wanting to hear? When did society become so thoughtless? It’s a topic that has been simmering for years, and Lynne Truss says it’s now reached the boiling point. Taking on the boorish behavior that for some has become a point of pride, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Talk to the Hand is not a stuffy guidebook, and is sure to inspire spirited conversation.

Why hasn’t your nephew ever thanked you for your carefully selected gift? What makes your contractor think it’s fine to snub you in the midst of a major renovation? Why do crowds spawn selfishness? What accounts for the appalling treatment you receive in stores (if you’re lucky enough to get a clerk’s attention at all)? Most important, what will it take to roll back a culture that applauds those who are disrespectful? In a recent U.S. survey, 79 percent of adults said that lack of courtesy was a serious problem. For anyone who’s fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (or lack thereof), Talk to the Hand is a colorful call to arms—from the wittiest defender of the civilized world.

Praise for Lynne Truss's #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves:

“If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I’d nominate her for sainthood.”
—Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes and ’Tis

“Ms. Truss's witty analysis and fussbudget tactics” are “contagious.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times

"Her scholarship is impressive and never dry."
—Edmund Morris, The New York Times Book Review

"Truss brings a droll sensibility to that driest of topics […] She's a reformer with the soul of a stand-up comedian."
—Jan Freeman, Boston Sunday Globe

"You can't help but be seduced by Truss's passion."
—Mary Ambrose, Boston Sunday Globe

Average Customer Rating:

So honest and accurate!	Customer Rating:
Although the book was a bit dirty looking when it arrived at my house (at least the cover was pretty filthy), when I got into the guts of the book, I really enjoyed it. Truss' writing is both interesting and humorous. I think she makes many valid points and observations about the world today and how manners have declined to such a degree. Well worth a read!

Utterly Nasty	Customer Rating:
This lady enjoys ripping into others way too much. I wish her better than she is capable of wishing others.

One Woman Answers an Eternal Question-"How Rude Was That?"

Customer Rating:

I wish I wrote so well. I dream that someday my natural verbosity will be distilled into a clarity resembling the precise pithy sentiments expressed by Lynne Truss in her lighthearted diatribe against contemporary rudeness entitled "Talk to the Hand:The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door." In this short pointed work Truss exposes the six modern incivilities that daily thwart the conscientious person's attempts to make life a bit more gracious. 1. The disappearance of small civil reciprocities such as "please" and "thank you." 2. Customers and patrons now serving themselves where traditionally they have been served, and the offending organizations still wanting our money! 3. People in public acting as if they are in private. Behaviors unleashed by the cell phone. 4. The Eff Off Response. No explanation needed. 5. Disrespect. When authority is perceived as a personal insult. 6. A lack of awareness that we are a part of a society, something larger than ourselves. This is potentially pedantic stuff. But Truss never lets it get too heavy. A quote from her chapter entitled "Booing the Judges" illustrates her delightfully snarky insightful style. "Count the role models for respectfulness, on the other hand, and after a couple of hours you will have to admit that there is only one: Babe. That's it. Just one small sturdy imaginary sheep-pig stands between us and total moral decay. "Excuse me," he says, gently tilting his snout upwards. "I wonder if you'd care to follow me this way to the hillside of enlightenment." At which point a passer-by tragically fells him with a blow to the head with an umbrella and shouts, "You see? I told you it was him!" (pages 172-173 @2005 Gotham Books, first edition) Absolutely do not stay home and bolt your door. Go directly to the library or bookstore and share in Truss's cathartic droll self-dubbed "moan of modern life."

Talk to the hand	Customer Rating:
No as good as her book called EAT SHOOTS and LEAVES, but was still funny and a good read

No, no, no EFF no, I disagree

Customer Rating:

I sang the praises of Ms. Truss after "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" gave us her thoughts on punctuation but I must strenuously object to this pretense at the same treatment of manners. It is depressing, it is judgmental and pessimistic, and it is hypocritical. After whining for chapters about how rudeness stems from the fact that people don't really care for each other any more, she reveals her happiest dream: A world where she can walk down the street, get on the tube, and move about a city where there are no pedestrians or traffic. In other words, her ideal world consists of no people! She is a misanthropist of the angriest sort. The only saving quality to justify reading the book is that it was a relief to close it, go out into the world, and notice that schoolchildren did NOT routinely bump into me, throwing garbage on the ground and shouting "Eff off!" The contrast between the universe full of bores that Ms. Truss occupies and my world seems excellent evidence of the idea that life is what you make it. P.S. What is the deal with writing "eff" so many times? If you would like to demonstrate how shocked you are by language, should you not employ the shocking tool of effing writing it out? We're all grownups here....