Social Q's: How to Survive the Quirks, Quandaries and Quagmires of Today

Office attire and e-mail misfire. Twitter snafus and dating miscues. Philip Galanes hears an awful lot of WHAT SHOULD I DOs?!

“I’m pretty sure the woman who swims laps next to me at the Y is peeing in the pool. What should I do?”

It started in 2008, when Galanes began the “Social Q’s” advice column for the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times.

“My boyfriend has an identical twin that I’m strangely hotter for than I am for him. What should I do?”

Since then, the questions come faster than a drunken starlet behind the wheel of a speeding Maserati.

“My Dad seems to have mixed up my cell phone number with the number of the woman he’s seeing behind my mother’s back. He sends her sexy texts that are freaking me out. What should I do?”

A cornerstone of The New York Times’s Styles section, Philip Galanes confronts today’s most awkward and pressing questions. Branded with an inimitable voice— witty and wise, sharp and saucy—Philip tackles unanswered questions and brand-new subjects with laugh-out-loud dish and practical wisdom. Not only about the new ways to thank a friend for throwing you a bridal shower (at a strip club), or when it’s appropriate to tell Nana to stop dressing like the latest Pop Tart, but also how to navigate a new age crowded with Tweets, twits, OMGs, and WTFs.

Social Q’s is a knockout book that will guide you swiftly through the treacherous terrain of modern etiquette—and keep you laughing for days.

Direct from the author of the popular “Social Q’s” column in The New York Times —a comedy of manners that strives to answer what exactly passes for good behavior in a world buzzing with tweets, twits, OMGs, WTFs, White House party crashers, fame monsters, and Facebook bullies.

Since its debut in June of 2008, Philip Galanes’s “Social Q’s” column has been a fixture in The New York Times and has quickly become one of its most popular features. In addition to his weekly column, Philip appears monthly on the Today show to dish with Kathie Lee and Hoda and dispense advice to the many Americans who need help navigating the murky moral waters of these modern times. Now, in Social Q’s, Philip collects his etiquette tips for a Mr. Manners-type guide that would make Emily Post dizzy.

Using a series of witty, briskly paced and hilarious essays, Philip Galanes considers a host of awkward, everyday situations…from texting on the bus to splitting the dinner check—and guides readers to a light-hearted awareness of how they behave…and misbehave. Sharp but never biting, smart without scolding, Social Q’s gives modern-day etiquette the helpful and entertaining shot in the arm it needs.

From New York Times columnist Philip Galanes, a comedy of manners that strives to answer what exactly passes for good behavior these days.    

Philip Galanes is the author of “Social Q’s,” the advice column published weekly in the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times. Philip is also an entertainment lawyer and novelist. He was born and raised in New England, and graduated from Yale College and Yale Law School. He occasionally sidelines as an interior designer, and his projects have been published in Architectural Digest, Elle Décor, New York magazine, and The New York Times. Visit him at PhilipGalanes.com.