This is really a book to read for pleasure, rather than edification.

I’m no pedant myself, and my writing tends to the sloppy, product of an American, grammarless education that I am, but Truss’s very humorous and pleasurable book makes the clear point that meaning and punctuation are intricately linked. For those of us who tend to be a little sloppy in our punctuation habits, substituting dashes for commas because it is much easier, or relegating punctuation to the realm of the pedant – subservient to meaning – this book is both an eye opener and cause for significant guilt.

There are plenty of those around, and the reader in search of educational improvement would be well advised to look elsewhere, although there is much to be learnt here. Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves is not really a handbook on better punctuation. If so, Truss’s book will have created a better, clearer, and more understandable world.Įats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to PunctuationĢ09pp, Profile, Dec 2003, hardcover, $A29.95 With any luck, we might even make them less often. The rest of us will probably agree with most of what Truss writes, enjoy this book for its good natured, light hearted banter, and often hysterical examples, and feel bad at our own transgressions. She's one of us.This book will make the pedant, or “stickler” feel good about themselves. The manifesto is already written.' Guardian 'It can only be a matter of time before the new government seizes the chance to appoint her as minister for punctuation. 'Lynne Truss deserves to be piled high with honours.' John Humphrys

'A witty, elegant and passionate book that should be on every writer's shelf.' Observer It's worth its weight in gold.' Boyd Tonkin, Independent Linguists will record Lynne Truss as the saviour of the semi-colon and the avenging angel of the apostrophe. When social histories come to be written of the first decade of the 21st century, people will note a turning point in 2003 when declining standards of punctuation were reversed. A witty, entertaining, impassioned guide to perfect punctuation, for everyone who cares about precise writing. The international bestseller, reissued and with a new introduction. 'If Lynne Truss were Roman Catholic I'd nominate her for sainthood.' Frank McCourt

Author of eats shoots and leaves