Any good books out there for learning social skills?

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I think I want to start learning basic adult social skills, or at least just look into it. Are there any good books out there to do that?

Temple Grandin is an autistic genius. She also has a good handle on NT behavior. In her book, she describes how to do social from OUR perspective. I recommend this book called, "Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships." The other part of the title is "Decoding Social Mysteries Through the Unique Perspectives of Autism." My C.A.R.D. counselor lent me this book and wanted me to review it for her I'm definitely going to make sure that she reads it too.

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Someone else started a thread asking the same question.

I think the concensus was that there seems to be alot of info directed at teaching children and teenagers about social skills, but nothing specifically for adults. The nearest someone got was a book for primary school teachers (I think that's grades 1-5 in the US) with tips for teaching social skills.

I've had a look myself and can't find anything that gives straight information in an adult style. There are a number of academic studies, but you have to plough through alot of technical jargon to get what you're looking for, and in the end you just feel like you're overhearing a conversation between two NTs talking across you.

I was thinking of starting a thread, or even a sticky thread, asking people what sort of social skills they'd like to know more about. But I wouldn't know where to take it from there, unless someone knows a person who could answer any queries.

I think I'd mostly like to know about facial expressions and body language. I don't know either of these things and I sometimes worry about if I come off as a bit of a jerk to people because I don't interpret body language correctly, so I might take something they say at face value, but really, they're saying the opposite, or some other misunderstanding. Like if someone is sad and I ask, "Do you want to talk about it?" and they say, "No," but they're really actually saying with their body language and facial expression that they do want to talk about it, but I say, "Okay," and walk away, because I would totally do that.

I also don't understand why it's appropriate for someone to say, "How are you?" back when someone says, "Hi, how are you?" but the person almost never says anything after I ask that. That makes me feel awkward, like I shouldn't say it, but then when I don't say it, I feel like I'm being rude. Which one should I do?

Good body language book. A good book is : "The Definitive Book of Body language" by
Allan and Barbara Pease.