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THE NEW CIVILITY by Sol Chaneles

THE NEW CIVILITY

By

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1973
Publisher: Grossman

Civility is ""more than manners, more than courtesy"" -- it's a state of mind -- thoughtful, at times critical and dignifying, and this short course of instruction consists of paragraph to page discussions on anything from ""Advice"" and ""Alcohol"" to ""Who Pays"" and ""Work."" Along with, in almost each case, apt and amusing, where not serious, epigrams from Pascal or Fred Allen or Mrs. Trollope or Jefferson or Eugene Debs. The assorted topics include ""Home,"" ""a profession of faith in life,"" ""Smoking,"" with that one-line determination of the Surgeon General, and of course ""Politics"" with a thought for this year -- ""the chief enemy of civility is not bad taste but bad politics, bad politicians."" There will be illustrations (a question of another kind of taste -- campy) by Claude Chaneles Grandberg along with some 19th-century gravures. . . . In a word -- and as it should be -- civilizing.