A bona fide publishing phenomenon, Lynne Truss's now classic #1 New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes its paperback debut after selling over 3 million copies worldwide in hardcover.
We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the Internet, in e-mail, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species.
In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with. BACKCOVER: Praise for Lynne Truss and Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Eats, Shoots & Leaves "makes correct usage so cool that you have to admire Ms. Truss." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times "Witty, smart, passionate." --Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books Of 2004: Nonfiction "Who knew grammar could be so much fun?" --Newsweek "Witty and instructive. . . . Truss is an entertaining, well-read scold in a culture that could use more scolding." --USA Today "Truss is William Safire crossed with John Cleese's Basil Fawlty." --Entertainment Weekly "Lynne Truss has done the English-speaking world a huge service." --The Christian Science Monitor "This book changed my life in small, perfect ways like learning how to make better coffee or fold an omelet. It's the perfect gift for anyone who cares about grammar and a gentle introduction for those who don't care enough." --The Boston Sunday Globe "Lynne Truss makes [punctuation] a joy to contemplate." --Elle "If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood." --Frank McCourt, author of Angela's Ashes "Truss's scholarship is impressive and never dry." --Edmund Morris, The New York Times Book Review
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
A LAUGH PER PAGE:
A cute little book with some fun prose, and a lot of confusion and differences of opinion about punctuation. It's the British way or the Truss way, but often doesn't help us across "the pond." She did get me thinking about sentence and paragraph structure, and probably more confused. The book did help me with apostrophes and the dashes, and it also reassured me to know that my high school English teacher was not always right. It's good to know that there are many different ways of punctuating, as long as... more info
Better to light a candle than curse the darkness:
As the old saying goes, it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. A little cursing is actually OK, but all Lynne Truss does is sit on the ground and cuss, and she never does light any candles. This book is just endless complaining; there is hardly any actual guidance on punctuation. Moreover, even the American edition takes no notice of American usage, except to mention its existence in passing. Truss's book deals exclusively with the British rules, which are rather different from ours, so the... more info
Puzzled by all the hype...:
Frankly, I'm puzzled over the hype about this book. I have always been annoyed with mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. But even I had trouble making it through this book. Sure, there were interesting and funny sections. And I even cleared up a few punctuation rules that weren't clear to me before. However, there were parts I found downright boring. It seems like the average person cares less about punctuation than I do, so how did this get on the best-seller list? I am glad I read it, though,... more info
Entertaining but poorly punctuated!:
As 532 other reviewers have (by in large) said, Lynne Truss's book is a funny and enjoyable rant about proper punctuation. It's also remarkably poorly punctuated for a grammar book. In some passages, Truss uses a forest of commas that get in the reader's way; in others, she omits commas that the reader needs to understand her meaning -- and there's little rhyme or reason for why she goes from one extreme to the other. In one section, after stating that her goal is to get "the greatest clarity from... more info
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