Washoe County Library System

NPR and "Vanity Fair" contributor Alford asks, what do "good" manners look like in our day and age? Troubled by the absence of good manners in his day-to-day life, Alford embarks on a journey to find out how things might look if people were on their best behavior a tad more often.

In every life there is a turning point, a moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton. After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton...

"These thirty short stories show an acknowledged master of the genre at the peak of his power. Most are set in the colonies at a time when the Empire was still assured, in a world in which men and women were caught between their unfamiliar surroundings. In this languid life, Maugham shows how a tiny spark of stray emotion acts as the catalyst to human tragedy. In subtle contrast, the stories set in an English landscape provide more familiar territory...

The author of Florence Adler Swims Forever returns with a masterful work of historical fiction about an incendiary tragedy that shocked a young nation and tore apart a community in a single night—told from the perspectives of four people whose actions during the inferno changed the course of history. Richmond, Virginia 1811. It’s the height of the winter social season, the General Assembly is in session, and many of Virginia’s gentleman planters,...

In this hilarious, tongue-in-cheek picture book about manners, zoo animals attempt to follow proper etiquette when they are accidentally invited to tea with the queen. Sit up straight. Don't slump. Don't slouch. Lay your napkin on your pouch. Amy Gibson's playful, rhyming text offers etiquette advice to zoo animals who scrupulously try, then marvelously fail, to mind their manners at the queen's tea party (much to the queen's dismay and the young...

"The long-awaited final volume in the acclaimed Penguin translation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time-one of the world's most beloved works of literature. "The greatest literary work of the twentieth century."-The New York Times. Ian Patterson's acclaimed new translation of Finding Time Again introduces a new generation of American readers to the literary riches of Marcel Proust. The seventh and final volume in Penguin Classics' superb new...

In the service of God -- Loyal men and true -- To the manor born -- Of towns and tradesmen. Essays : Monastic life. The Crusades. A child's world. Cathedrals. "The text presents an overview of life in the Middle Ages through descriptions of noble and notable individuals such as Charlemagne, Heloise and Abelard, Thomas Becket, and William Marshal....The book is divided into four chapters that center on the people of the church, the knightly class,...

"London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation in spite of their nation's recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers in the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their bond, along with their nascent hopes for a brighter future, are...