This book is not an art book even though it says so right in the title. Instead, it’s almost 200 pages talking about etiquette for thank you notes, including numerous examples. The examples make up a quarter to a third of the page total, actually. I suppose I could count them for you, but I’m inherently too lazy to do so.
I’m a little surprised that the author could get so many pages out of the topic, but she’s an old technical writer. Basically, it boils down to write thank you notes and use nice stationery if you can, but the little folded Thank You cards are all right for less formal occasions. Also, send thank you notes for job interviews.
You know, I’ve been pretty dilligent for writing thank you notes for gifts I have received, which is not had since I don’t get that many gifts. My brother and I wrote out thank you notes after my mother’s funeral to everyone who came or sent flowers. So I’m already up on the basics of thank you writing.
But perhaps I could up my game by getting some custom letterhead and writing out thank you notes to people who have done nice things for me, nice things I’ve seen, or things I’ve enjoyed. I understand that gratitude is one of the self-help trends of the day–along with mindfulness–but I really could be better in perhaps brightening someone’s day with a little thank you note.
If they could even read it. Perhaps I should work on my penmanship first.
At any rate, this book is a bit long for the topic it covers–you could get the gist of it from an article in a women’s magazine–but it didn’t take too long to read.
On the other hand, this book makes an excellent gift if you’re passive-aggressive.
