Niche

This week's Booking Through Thursday meme asks:

There are certain types of books that I more or less assume all readers read. (Novels, for example.)

But then there are books that only YOU read. Instructional manuals for fly-fishing. How-to books for spinning yarn. How to cook the perfect souffle. Rebuilding car engines in three easy steps. Dog training for dummies. Rewiring your house without electrocuting yourself. Tips on how to build a NASCAR course in your backyard. Stuff like that.

What niche books do YOU read?

This may come as a surprise revelation, but I love to read antiquated etiquette books and have a small collection, seen below.

The Amy Vanderbilt is from the early 1950s; the Emily Post is a 1940 edition of the 1922 book; the Lillian Eichler Watson, at the top, is 1948, and when I bought it, the clerk at the used book store called over the rest of the staff to show them that somebody was actually buying it. Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior hails from the late 70s, making it the most interesting of the three in certain ways (it's surprising, at this date, the kind of knots people tied themselves into to avoid the political baggage perceived to be carried by the perfectly functional title "Ms."). Judith Martin is unquestionably a humorist before all else - it's just delightful.

Etiquette books are wonderful for skimming. With a few flips of the page you can discover the proper attire for groomsmen and chambermaids, how to word an invitiation to a dinner party without dancing, when the roof is an introduction (and when it is not), and whose bouquet you should be holding when you receive the guests at your debutante ball (often, those given to you by the closest male relative who sent a small enough bunch to comfortably hold in one arm while you shake hands).

They also have a charming cast of characters used in the case studies. Mr. Worldly and Mrs. Wellbred and Miss Stranger, and whatnot. Eventually you get attached to them, and feel sympathy when Mr. and Mrs. Oldblood have to announce the postponement of their daughter's wedding to Mr. Bachelor.

People - the sort of people who boast about always speaking their mind and not knowing which fork to use - dismiss the body of formal etiquette as the behavioral equivalent of so much Victorian silverware, rules invented for no reason but to broaden the social gap. But you can't get there from any proper reading of the source material, which holds aloft the guiding principles of decency and good sense. I wish we still had that, rather than the senseless quabbling over when to hold the dollar dance at your wedding reception (hint: never).