Eats, Shoots, & Leaves

Truss, Lynne

3.87

105,078 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0142800821 ISBN 13: 9780142800829

Publisher: Penguin Group USA, 2004

In 2002 Lynne Truss presented Cutting a Dash, a well-received BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation, which led to the writing of Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The book became a runaway success in the UK, hitting number one on the bestseller lists and prompting extraordinary headlines such as Grammar Book Tops Bestseller List (BBC News). With more than 500,000 copies of her book in print in her native England, Lynne Truss is ready to rally the troops on this side of the pond with her rousing cry, Sticklers unite!

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 Lynne 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. If there are only pedants left who care, then so be it. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From George Orwell shunning the semicolon, to New Yorker editor Harold Ross's epic arguments with James Thurber over commas, 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.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

Lynne Truss has written a funny and apposite book. (Mary Kenny Irish Independent)

This is a tremendous book: funny, acute, clear and exactly what I need. (Henry Porter)

This book is brilliant. I laughed, I howled, and I immediately wanted to join the Militant wing of the Apostrophe Society. This is great stuff: genuine, heartfelt, and rousing. Buy it for any reader you know - you will delight them. (Jenny Colgan)

The most charming, entertaining reflections on punctuation I have ever read...Rattling amusingly across the mine-studded plains of English communication, from dashes to question marks to colons and commas, Truss's mischievous wit and memorable anecdotes are hugely refreshing. (Rosemary Goring Glasgow Herald)

Lynne Truss is jolly good fun, or at least her book is. This is a book you could just as easily give to a venerable uncle who is a stickler for semicolons or an ignorant whippersnapper with an English GCSE on the horizon. It is both practical and colourful. Read the book, you'll get the (full) point. (Sarah Vine Times)

A wonderfully readable little treatise on the uses and misuses of punctuation...witty and entertaining as well as informative. (Terry Eagleton Irish Times)

There are plenty of laughs in this book...but this is more than a witty, elegant and passionate book that should be on every writer's shelf...Lynne Truss's book is as much an argument for clear thinking as it is a pedantic defence of obsolete conventions of written language. Well. Done. Lynne!!!!!!! (Nigel Williams Observer Review)

Lynne Truss deserves to be piled high with honours... she feels a genuine affection for those little full stops and commas, colons and semi-colons. She wants them protected rather than revered, respected rather than worshipped, for the vital job they do. I think she probably understates her case when she argues that people who persist in writing "Good food at it's best" deserve to be "struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave". Lightning strikes are altogether too random. There should be a government task force with the single duty of rooting out such barbarians and burning them at the stake. Happily, Truss is a funny writer and she has an eye for the grotesque. (John Humphrys Sunday Times)

Three cheers for Lynne Truss, the extremely droll sports-writer and comic novelist, whose book Eats, Shoots & Leaves makes the history of punctuation a subject at once urgent, sexy and hilarious...Her book is a joyous call to arms for grammatical sticklers everywhere, and I have signed up with delight (John Walsh Independent)

Eats, Shoots & Leaves has been a surprise UK bestseller. Every company meeting should begin with a reading from it, followed by a prayer of thanks for its existence (Michael Skapinker Financial Times)

[A] witty, clear-headed and altogether enchanting book ... It makes you love punctuation; you want to conserve what is still left and perhaps even call for more of it ... Reading this book put me in such a good mood that I came close to forgiving the people who use that modern punctuation atrocity, the "forward slash". (Oliver Pritchett Sunday Telegraph)

This book will stimulate and satisfy. It's worth it's weight in gold. (Boyd Tonkin The Independent)

It can only be a matter of time before the new government seizes the chance to appoint her [Lynne Truss] as minister for punctuation. The manifesto is already written. (The Guardian)

If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood. As it is, thousands of English teachers from Maine to Maui will be calling down blessings on her merry, learned head for her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It's a book about punctuation, the poor stepchild of mean old grammar.Punctuation, if you don't mind! The book is so spirited, so scholarly, so seductive, English teachers will sweep aside all other topics to get to, you guessed it, punctuation. Parents and children gather by the fire on chilly evenings to read passages on the history of the semi-colon and the much-maligned dash. Make way for the new Cinderella of the English language, Punctuation Herself! (Frank McCourt)

Ms Truss has had enough; to judge from the huge sales this book has had in its first few weeks, she has unearthed a vast army of supporters...If you have not done so already, buy a copy of this book, read it, absorb its message, then give it to a sub-literate friend or colleague for Christmas. (Beachcomber Daily Express)

Lovers of good English have thought of ourselves as isolated outposts...Lynne Truss has emerged as our champion. (William Hartson Daily Express)

If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood. As it is, thousands of English teachers from Maine to Maui will be calling down blessings on her merry, learned head for her book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It's a book about punctuation, the poor stepchild of mean old grammar.
Punctuation, if you don't mind! The book is so spirited, so scholarly, so seductive, English teachers will sweep aside all other topics to get to, you guessed it, punctuation. Parents and children gather by the fire on chilly evenings to read passages on the history of the semi-colon and the much-maligned dash. Make way for the new Cinderella of the English language, Punctuation Herself!

(Frank McCourt author of Angela's Ashes and Tis)

From the Publisher:

This international bestseller, with over 2 million copies sold worldwide, is fast becoming a modern classic. With humor, it guides us and encourages us to use punctuation in a way that will bring life and character to the written word. A book that can be read as a tale from beginning to end and used as a reference guide in moments of confusion. Be prepared to laugh out loud.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.