As someone who works in customer service, dealing with children and their parents day after day, I witness and experience my fair share of rudeness; it just comes with the territory. For the most part, I bite my tongue (I’d still like to get tipped, ya know?) but it really amazes me how many people lack common decency. Lately I’ve been interested in purchasing a book on manners and etiquette because I really believe that a good dose of manners and politeness can either fix or prevent most of the bad things that happen in the world. I browsed the selection on Amazon, only to find that the books I coveted the most were quite expensive. I happened to read some positive reviews for Miss Alkon’s book, but decided to hold off on buying any books until I could decide which one I wanted. A couple of weeks later, I went shopping in my local used-book store, and there was her book, sitting on a shelf for a mere $5! I immediately snapped it up along with a few other items.

I See Rude People is a collection of anecdotes from Amy Alkon’s personal and professional life. She works as an advice columnist and blogger, so she’s experienced her fair share of anonymous (and not so anonymous) hate mail. She’s also been victim of a surprising number of car-related crimes, from getting her car stolen, to getting her other car smashed in a hit-and-run. Any time she witnesses or experiences rudeness, she takes it upon herself to lead a one-woman crusade against impolite people, creating consequences for behavior that often goes unchecked, and she encourages her readers to do the same. Amy Alkon has a really biting sense of humor, and you can tell that she is an experienced writer by the way she tells each of her stories.

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