Eats shoots and leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation [Hardcover]

Everyone knows the basics of punctuation, surely? Aren't we all taught at school how to use full stops, commas and question marks? And yet we see ignorance and indifference everywhere. "Its Summer!" says a sign that cries out for an apostrophe. "ANTIQUE,S," says another, bizarrely. "Pansy's ready", we learn to our considerable interest ("Is she?"), as we browse among the bedding plants.

In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss dares to say that, with our system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. If there are only pedants left who care, then so be it. "Sticklers unite" is her rallying cry. "You have nothing to lose but your sense of proportion--and arguably you didn't have much of that to begin with."

This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to Sir Roger Casement "hanged on a comma"; from George Orwell shunning the semicolon to Peter Cook saying Nevile Shute's three dots made him feel all funny", this book makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.

Altogether enchanting...it makes you love punctuation; you want to conserve what is left and perhaps even call for more.

This is more than a witty, elegant and passionate book that should be on every writer's shelf. Well. Done. Lynne!!!!

'Lynne Truss deserves to be piled high with honours'.

Truss is one of life's head girls. She's also jolly good fun, or at least her book is.

A wonderful little treatise on the uses and misuses of punctuation. Witty and entertaining as well as informative.

Lovers of good English have thought of ourselves as isolated outposts...Lynne Truss has emerged as our champion.

'Lynne Truss has written a funny and apposite book'.

'She's a soul sister. She's one of us.'

The book of the year, really. It meets the Zeitgeist. Very quirky and enormous fun.

Her faint scoldiness, good humour, self-deprecatory pedantry and bloody-minded doggedness make this the most enjoyable book about punctuation ever written.

A witty, entertaining, impassioned guide to perfect punctuation, for everyone who cares about precise writing. Not a primer but a 'zero tolerance' manual for direct action. A panda walked into a cafe. He ordered a sandwich, ate it, then pulled out a gun and shot the waiter. 'Why?' groaned the injured man. The panda shrugged, tossed him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and walked out. And sure enough, when the waiter consulted the book, he found an explanation. 'Panda,' ran the entry for his assailant. 'Large black and white mammal native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.' We see signs in shops every day for "Banana's" and even "Gateaux's". Competition rules remind us: "The judges decision is final." Now, many punctuation guides already exist explaining the principles of the apostrophe; the comma; the semi-colon. These books do their job but somehow punctuation abuse does not diminish. Why? Because people who can't punctuate don't read those books! Of course they don't! They laugh at books like those! Eats, Shoots and Leaves adopts a more militant approach and attempts to recruit an army of punctuation vigilantes: send letters back with the punctuation corrected. Do not accept sloppy emails. Climb ladders at dead of night with a pot of paint to remove the redundant apostrophe in "Video's sold here".

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.

It has just been exclamation marks all the way!

Lynne Truss is one of Britain's top comic writers and is the author of the number one bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It has sold over three million copies worldwide and won the British Book of the Year award in 2004. She has also written four comic books, Going Loco, Making the Cat Laugh, Tennyson's Gift and With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed, all available from Profile Books. She is a regular presenter on Radio 4, a Times columnist and a guest presenter for many other programmes. She lives in Brighton.