Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss

1592400876

All right, very clever. One quibble: If you don’t know where the title came from, you won’t find out in the book.

Having said that, this is a much less dense read than I was expecting. Nothing shocking in it (to me) although I will say that the publisher’s decision not to change the book to fit the American norms was extremely disconcerting. There are just enough rules differences that I actually got annoyed a couple of times! Not with what Truss was saying, just at the fact that I had to reread her words because the punctuation got in the way. Which is exactly the point she’s trying to make, of course.

If you need to brush up on grammar, read this. If you want to know how to use a semi-colon or an em dash, read this. If you like ellipses (like me), you may feel a little abashed (like me).

A fun book.