‘Just Good Manners: A Quintessential Guide to Courtesy, Charm, Grace and Decorum’

By William Hanson
c.2025, Gallery Books
$28.99, 272 pages

So. Many. Forks.

You’re glad you’re not doing the dishes at the end of this dinner — but in the meantime, what’s protocol? If this event wasn’t a make-or-break, filled-with-repercussions kind of deal for you, you wouldn’t care; you’d use one fork, one spoon and enjoy your meal, thank you. So please pass the salt and the new book “Just Good Manners” by William Hanson.

Dining at a restaurant not long ago, Hanson noticed a glaring difference between how his fellow Brits order a meal, and how Americans do it. We might share a language, he says, and we’re a lot alike but we’re also different in many ways. Manners are one of them.

It may seem that formal manners are archaic, even quaint, but Hanson says that they’re needed now more than ever. Manners help smooth social transactions. They leave room for grace in many situations and help put people at ease.

“Contemporary etiquette,” he says, “is rooted in six key principles.”

Humility is what ensures that everyone at your meeting or dinner is comfortable, not just you. Hospitality welcomes everyone to the table. Knowing one’s rank shows respect. Says Hanson, “politeness takes patience” and humor, as manners evolve. And although it sounds counterintuitive, manners are somewhat based on passive-aggressiveness, which helps you be direct, but not too much.

Here, you’ll learn how to deal with introductions in different situations and what to do with a pronoun faux pas. You’ll see that merely greeting someone can be fraught with danger, so be sure you know who’s who before you enter a room. Learn to avoid five “taboo” topics when engaging in small talk. If you’re interrupted, know how to kindly gain control of a conversation again. Find out how the use of slang tells a listener who you really are. Know how to be a good guest and the kind of host people appreciate.

And yes, you’ll learn about those many, many forks…

You do not live in a bubble. You don’t work in one, either, and smoothing ruffled feathers is needed more than ever in today’s world, so maybe it’s time to learn how to do that from a very unruffled source. With “Just Good Manners,” it could even set you apart.

Indeed, Hanson makes a case for politeness-as-diplomacy here, in a book that’s very Brit-centric but includes anecdotes about disastrous situations in other countries. Tales like those are fun to read, in a schadenfreude way, but they also illustrate why it’s essential to understand other cultures in business settings as well as in many casual events. If that sounds daunting, rest assured that Hanson uses his own advice, putting readers at ease with humor and charm and by taking the scariness out of manners by making them an easy, maybe even enjoyable, challenge.

You won’t feel scolded when you read “Just Good Manners,” but you will learn enough to be someone people want around. It’ll give you confidence. Before your next big event, it’ll give you something to chew on.

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