EricaO

This was not what I had expected from a book published by National Geographic. It read and looked more like a DK encyclopedia with its bright pictures and brief blurbs.
Each manner or custom gets a one-page treatment, nothing too in-depth, and seems to have been only briefly researched. There's just not a lot of information and much of it is hedged with "no one knows how this started" or "it may have come from..." Manners, customs and etiquette tend to be well-documented in many cultures and I felt a little more digging could have provided more information as to the origins and uses of many of the customs presented. I had hoped for solid essays explaining how the manners presented came to be, what they meant, how they had changed over time, and such. I think that was the intent of each essay but I don't feel the intent was fully-realized.
I found the customs to be arranged in an odd fashion. There are eight over-arching chapters: Shake hands, tip hats; Say the magic words; Elbows off the table; Rank's privileges; All in the family; The game of life; On the road again; Getting & spending. Each chapter, then, has a page-per-custom that relates to the chapter. However, not every custom in its chapter necessarily belongs to the chapter so the arrangement feels a little haphazard, like the manners had to be arranged and this was the best way possible to put them into some type of loose construction. It's a minor thing, but one that I noticed because I had decided to read the book front-to-back.
It doesn't need to be read front-to-back. It can be flipped through and a page can be read randomly, out of order. There's no story to follow. That's just what I did after completing the Shake hands, tip hats chapter. I got bored and I was frustrated with the lack of meaty discourse, so I just started hopping, sampling manners throughout the book. I often found myself not finishing a page, moreso than I found myself nodding and thinking, "How fascinating!"
I didn't read the entire book. It didn't have what I wanted. I'm not sure what reading level it is aimed toward but it wouldn't be out of place in the children's section. It is in no way a comprehensive text on the origin of manners, customs, and etiquette from around the world. That is fine, of course. It's just not what I had wanted from this particular book.