P. M. Forni (1951–2018)

I just finished reading Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct (Paperback) by P.M. Forni. The book does make some good suggestions and gives its share of good advice. For example, back in a rough patch in my life back in 1977 I embarrassed one of my now close friends with a series of somewhat questionable messages left with other Stanford summer students left to people who answered the payphone in the lobby of his summer dormitory. Notwithstanding this embarrassment, when he returned to the New York area he took the chance of setting me up in a part-time job he had held earlier that summer. Some of the tips he provided on getting along in the work setting were almost verbatim the tips given in this book. He could not have gotten the tips from the book since it wasn't written until 23 years or more later. I picked up this book while browsing the overstock at a small bookstore in Vermont. I finally got sick of looking at it on my shelf and started reading it, in installments, while reading other books.

There are several reasons, however, I give this book only two stars on Goodreads.com. As I pointed out above, many of the tips could be offered by a reasonably intelligent and articulate 20 year old. The book seems almost a compendium of those. Also, the book would have been exhausting and not too interesting to read, cover to cover. All the same, I suppose, it is a handy advice reference in certain circumstances. This book was not one of the highlights of my somewhat extensive reading.… (mere)

This is the First Year Reading Book for our campus and one of the required textbooks for a course I'm teaching.

This book as has some great ideas, but it is really tedious to read. I struggled to finish the book all summer and finally made it through. Its slow in the first part and feels like it takes forever to get to the "good" stuff. I don't think my students fared much better with it either, but hopefully the supplemental assignments will make up for that.

This book has a lot of common sense for some ( not all) but offers some good ideas and a good starting point for truly thinking about our actions and the affects they may/can have on others.… (mere)