I love Tim Gunn. I was really surprised to not fall head over heels in love with this book. I suspect this has to do with the genre. I don't tend to read self help books. And as much as it pains me to say I found some of his dishing about past PR contestants to be contradictory to his always try to take the high ground advice. I think secretly I either wanted the book to be full of dishy gossip or etiquette tips. It didn't feel right to have both. That said did I mention I love Tim Gunn? ( )

Gunn hits the proverbial nail of hte head once again, as he provides a unique and much-needed perspective on modern manners and life in general. Some may see this genre as antiquated, but Gunn's wit and saavy advice are sorely needed to impart some harsh truths about how many people live in the modern age. I might not agree with all of Gunn's advice (sometimes we have a right to be bitter and cynical), but it was none the less a highly informative and enjoyable read. ( )

Tim Gunn hereby displays his "golden rules", which are chapters often adhering to old-school etiquette. It's not strict as "respect your elders", but are often somewhat coherent, nice and strict. The book, as a whole, is quite interesting as Gunn has a few very valid points (in my view) and, strangely enough, from a gossipy view contradicts himself as far as not talking pap about people is concerned. Anonymity is mostly not kept, especially when he quotes examples that go against his rules, which mostly is from episodes of "Project Runway"; he often mentions "taking the high road", but sometimes veers from it, methinks.

His style of writing is simple, clean, mostly coherent and entertaining, for instance:

Usually people think of me as a surprisingly nice person as fashion people go, but occasionally someone will corner me on the street and say: “You’re so mean!” Often this is because people mistake me for Clinton Kelly from What Not to Wear—which I’m sure would disturb him to no end, because I could be his grandfather. When I determine that’s the case, I say, “I think you have me mistaken for—” Then they’ll interrupt and say, “I’ve been watching that show for years!” And I will say, “Then you really should know I’m not Clinton Kelly.”

I quite liked some of the rules where he simply and strongly states what he believes in:

With a certain amount of maturity, we can set up our own constraints. That’s a lot of what education is about—letting people set those assignments for us so that when we graduate we can start to set them for ourselves. Even now that I’m in my fifties, I still face certain situations where I have to admit that I need some rules to help me figure out what I should do. Bosses should think of themselves as fulfilling this kind of boundary-giving function that school and parents do. They need to be clear about expectations and rules so everyone knows when an employee is doing well or not doing well. And when expectations are not met, there should be logical consequences, whether that’s the loss of the job, a decrease in salary, or something less drastic. There is no reason, in any case, ever to yell. And yet we’ve all seen it: bosses who lose their tempers constantly.

And:

When the news is happy, e-mail is fine. You can e-mail congratulations about babies, weddings, anything. But when it’s not? If it’s a death or other bad news, you have to be more formal. I wasn’t the only one who was a little horrified by Ashton Kutcher’s reference to his former girlfriend Brittany Murphy’s death. He wrote on Twitter: “2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany’s family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon.” People use texting and e-mail for everything, but it’s not appropriate for somber situations. If you win an Oscar, tweet away, but if you’re talking about a death or an illness, you need to use more formal channels.

...and we also have some tips that I think are quite insane, e.g. where supply/demand should be understood:

One little technology-taming tip, If you, too, are surprised by typos: I like to print out things I’m working on to read them on paper before I send them off. You miss a lot of things on the screen that are apparent when you’re looking at them on the page. Yes, there is the environment to think of, but—to paraphrase a certain celebrity on the topic of her fur coat being dead when she got it (“I didn’t kill it!” she said)—the tree’s already been taken down.

...or he's just downright funny:

Going to church was not my favorite thing when I was young. From a very early age, I was very suspicious of our priest. My parents thought I was crazy and just trying to get out of going to services, but I said, “No, there really is something weird about that man.” Indeed, one day when I was nine or ten, the priest was up at the pulpit. He went into a silent prayer and … never came out of it. After a few minutes the ushers realized he’d left the plane of reality the rest of us were on, so they had an intervention and took him away. And yes: I smiled very smugly at my parents all the way home.

The book turns a little dull about half-way, but regains strength appx. 70% in, where Gunn unveils his personal life in many ways, not least where his family life is involved. About his personal life:

When people hear that I haven’t had a boyfriend since 1982, they often whisper, “Does he not have sex?” That’s right! You know, much of my one long-term boyfriend’s “I’m over this” was about not having the patience for me with regard to sex. I’ve always been kind of asexual. So now I can’t even consider sex without thinking about him and his disapproval. Talk about something that will make you lose the urge. That breakup was a cold shower to last a lifetime. Could I get psychiatric help and resume some kind of sex life at some point? Probably. But it’s a little late for that. And frankly, I am happy being celibate. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had thoughts. I am a human being. But I love my life and don’t feel any need to change it. Getting used to being alone was hard, but now that I’ve made a life for myself alone, I really like it. It’s been years since I’ve been interested in anyone. And I really think if you don’t need it, you don’t need it. As hard as it is for a lot of my friends to believe, I really am happy alone.

His life-affirming and positive words shine through:

What do they say: Do what you love and the money will follow? It’s always been true for me. I had no expectation of personal success through this show. I never expected there would be a second season, much less a seventh. And I never expected to get famous in a million zillion years. While we were making Season 1, I just thought, If nothing else, this is going to be great cocktail-party-conversation fodder.

All in all, the book is part modern etiquette - the bits about using gadgets like mobile phones, laptops, et.c. are brilliant - written in a snappy, elegant, funny and modern way. Simply understood. The parts about where to draw lines in life are also to be saluted. It could have been edited better, but at the end of this book, I felt even more respect for Gunn having read this book, and that comes from somebody who's seen every episode of "Project Runway" so far. ( )

Fluffy fluffy fluff. I kind of love Tim Gunn, and it was delightful reading. His editor should have worked harder to keep everything organized, though. Maybe she did work really hard and he's just a nightmare to edit, I don't know. But lots of the chapters had anecdotes that didn't really fit together. But still, the book is kind of like hanging out and chatting with Tim Gunn, so it gets props for that. ( )

A fun, fast, gossipy read that I picked up due to dg's comments at BookBalloon. I've had quite a week, with in-laws and holidays and assorted school-related mini-dramas, and I wasn't quite ready to go back to Parrot and Olivier yet. I enjoyed the juicy bits of this, but the format--Tim Gunn presents his rules for life--necessitates a somewhat self-righteous tone, and so Gunn comes across as more arrogant and judgy in prose than he does on television. ( )