The Art of Punctuation [Paperback]

I found Noah Lukeman's The Art of Punctuation to be an enlightening and enjoyable read. Throughout, the focus is on the effective use of punctuation to shape content in a manner supportive of the writer's intent. As Lukeman puts it, "This, its impact on content, is the holy grail of punctuation, too often buried in long discussions of grammar and history."

The book has three sections:

Part 1: The Full Stop, The Comma, The Semicolon
Part 2: The Colon, The Dash and Brackets, Quotation Marks, The Paragraph and Section Break
Part 3: The Question Mark, Italics, the Ellipsis, and the Hyphen

In Parts One and Two, each chapter discusses both use and misuse of each punctuation mark, using examples from literature to illustrate the points made. Also considered is the context in which each punctuation mark is used. Exercises are provided to encourage experimentation in sentence construction. There is also a brief series of comments in each chapter titled "What your use of [punctuation mark] says about you".

Part Three covers its contents in a single chapter which, although brief, is tightly focussed.

An epilogue, The Symphony of Punctuation, looks at how punctuation marks affect one another.

Lukeman has an engaging style which, with numerous examples from great writers, made this book a joy to read. That, however, is not why I bought it: I want to improve the quality of my writing.

From that perspective, I have found the book useful in expanding my awareness of the uses of punctuation in the crafting of a text. This has been helpful in making decisions on sentence construction in the course of revising a manuscript; rather than simply focussing on punctuation as something to get right, I am much more mindful of its use in creating mood, sharpening emphasis and controlling pace. Such consideration may well come naturally to a gifted or experienced writer but I admit it does not do so for me.

Less useful is the series "What your use of . . . says about you". I found these a little superficial and out of place in an otherwise enlightening book. That said, they only amount to a few pages in total.

Despite my appreciation of the book, I am not sure how many writers need, or value, this level of detail. I would, therefore, recommend a prospective purchaser carry out an internet search on the title of the American edition, A Dash of Style, as the official web site contains excerpts of the introduction, the chapter on the semicolon and the epilogue. These might help determine whether this book will be of use or interest to you.

A totally different punctuation book that gets to the heart of the matter for creative writers focusing on the use of punctuation in controlling the story but it is not a book on the mundane use of punctuation. Many examples are given from master writers; highly recommended for any creative writer.

Many novelists nowadays give the impression that they all attended the same creative writing course. This book could have been part of the set reading for that course. If I took this book seriously I would become paralysed with fear of people like its author measuring my paragraphs and counting my commas. Perhaps it would be helpful to people who want to win a literary prize and bore people to death. A far better book and a more-encouraging one is Practical Novel Writing (The "Writers News" Library of Writing)