I just finished reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss this past weekend. It is wonderful. If you’re reading this blog, you likely have some interest in rhetoric, editing, and communication, so from that I’m going to go along with the assumption that you also are interested in how you can improve your rhetoric, editing, and communication skills.
No matter how good we are at any of those three things, there is always room for improvement and always something new to learn. That is the beauty of rhetoric.
Lynne Truss makes me want to stand up and start parading down the street, handing out copies of her book to everyone I see. She makes me want to fly to Britain to hug her. Eats, Shoots and Leaves is the kind of book that I kept thinking over and over, “I could have written that. And that. And that!” as I read it.
Parts of it, lamenting the decline of literacy and the written word in today’s society, made me laugh. Every page had new tips and tricks from which to learn new ways of handling grammar and punctuation. Every time you wonder if you should use a comma or a semi-colon, or where the exact position for an apostrophe should be, or how to properly word a sentence, you can flip through the pages of Eats, Shoots and Leaves to find the answer to your problem.
Please do yourself a favour and go out now to the bookstore or the library. Find this book. Read it cover to cover. Cherish it. It is wonderful.
What is one of your favourite grammar/editing books? Have you read Eats, Shoots and Leaves before? What did you think of it?
I loved it. I was afraid it would be tiresome, but her humor is wonderful, not irritating.
I had feared the same thing! But yes – her humor is wonderful. I’m not at all surprised that you love this book too 🙂
I read it years ago when it first came out in the UK – can’t believe I never thought to recommend it to you! It is so good and has become a minor classic over here. Sadly it hasn’t had much impact on standards though 🙁
That book should have a special place in every home.