Manners, Good and Bad

摘要

All of us have received those scoring guidelines from funding agencies that begin with outstanding; proceed through excellent, very good, and good; and terminate (at least in America) with average. Absent are poor, bad, awful, and disgusting. I have always felt that only two categories are required: interesting and boring. Boring and being bored figure large in Jim Watson's new book Avoid Boring People, and the double meaning of the title is make explicit by the insertion of a ghostly "other" on the dust jacket.