Eats, Shoots and Leaves: Er, Pardon My French!

It’s time for #6degrees. Start with the monthly read, add six books, and see where you end up. The 6 Degrees of Separation Meme is hosted every month at Books are my Favorite and Best.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss is the book for July 2021. This nonfiction modern classic “combines boisterous history with grammar how-to’s to show how important punctuation is in our world—period”. Let’s take a look at all the books on mannerisms that Eats, Shoots & Leaves reminded me of.

1 / The Social Climber’s Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice for the Upwardly Mobile by Dirk Wittenborn & Jazz Johnson

This is a dark social satire masquerading as a parody self-help book. The book offers outlandish suggestions on how to lie and cheat your way into hobnobbing with the upper classes. All of this in a deadpan comical way. The oddest part is that it has a grain of truth. People do say these kinds of ludicrous things and behave in outrageous attention-seeking ways to win over others.

2 / Georgette Heyer’s Powder & Patch

You can’t be talking about manners and not talk about Georgette Heyer’s comedies of manners. There are unwritten rules on how polite society behaves in the Regency Era. And so, a country gentleman is packed off rather ignominiously to Paris for learning some refinement. When he returns with much success, his old friends wonder whether he still has any respect for them. Serve them right!

3 / The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

In a Victorian world where everyone’s brimming with insincerity and money-mindedness, Oscar Wilde talks about the importance of being earnest. No easy thing, when even wanting to be called ‘Earnest’ is going to make our heroes sweat with desperation. This was written as a play, but I personally felt reading the book was far funnier than watching it acted out in the 2002 movie.

4 / How to Behave Badly in Elizabethan England by Ruth Goodman

This fourth book shows how disdain towards so-called trouble-makers became an art form in Elizabethan England. And really, there was no end to those trouble-makers: knaves, fools, harlots, cuckolds, drunkards, liars, thieves and braggarts. All of them had missed out on the guide for approved social behavior in some way or the other.

5 / Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come: An Introvert’s Year of Living Dangerously by Jessica Pan

The narrator is an introvert, and explains her difficulties in facing up to a highly-charged extroverted world every day. She decides to become more outgoing (er, chattier with strangers) to shake up her life. She often ends up missing important social cues, and she discovers, so do many others. This is a memoir of all her funny but also enriching encounters along the way.

6 / A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke

When in France, do as the French do. Except that Paul West, a British visitor to Paris, finds this very, very difficult. He has been brought in by a French company to open a chain of British “tea rooms” in France. He ends up totally confused, and asking everyone to pardon his French. A screwball comedy narrative ensues as one whacky mishap just keeps leading to another.

Have you read Eats, Shoots and Leaves? Which books did it remind you of? Let’s discuss!