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If you haven't been reading Judith Martin's "Miss Manners" column or books, you owe it to yourself for the sheer pleasure of reading elegant, precise English, for there is no more gracefully precise writer working in our language today.

But along with the pleasure of subtle irony and gentle understatement, you will also have the more earthy pleasure of reading a wise social critic who, starting from the perspective of manners and etiquette, provides one of the best practical anthropologies of contemporary American culture one is likely to find. I don't always agree with her on which manners ought to prevail, but I find she is invariably right about what the principles of etiquette ought to be.

We read our first Miss Manners book early in our marriage, and some of the rules then have become linchpins of our (very successful so far) child-rearing. One rule we're grateful for: "No child should hear criticism on the day of the performance." We have kept that one absolutely, and grieve for the children whose parents don't allow them that day of glowing praise before the "helpful suggestions" kick in. Likewise, we have followed her strict separation of the roles of parents and friends, leaving our children to find their own friends, since we are the only people available to them to fill the much more important role of parents.

This book is a collection of her columns, but themes and patterns emerge very nicely because she brings to all subjects an inclusive, effective world view that links them together. Each column is a jewel in itself, and I take special delight in the way she concludes a column with a letter or two from a reader. Often the reader's comments seem to say the exact opposite of what Martin just said in the column before, but she leaves it to us to reach our own conclusion, and that trust in our intelligence is so flattering that I would enjoy the book even if she were right only half as often as she actually is.