Eats, Shoots & Leaves

Title: Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Author: Lynne Truss
Recommended by: Matt Welty (Through Facebook)

I started reading books that were listed as my friends "favorites" on facebook. I mean, I trust my friends, and they have to like the book enough to list it. This book was on punctuation, and it wasn't that hot. The lady spent a lot of time being angry about people doing crazy punctuation errors like using a comma instead of an apostrophe. She was also British, so maybe things are a little crazier in the writing system over there, anarchy among the semi-colons. I learned a lot about how to use what in different situations, punctuation-wise, but I couldn't get over this lady's attitude.

She didn't seem to realize that language evolves, and even though she would mention ways that it had changed, she wanted to hold on so tightly to her view of punctuation. But it was her anger at the incorrect punctuation that bothered me. So what if some people use it incorrectly, it'll change. The last chapter of the book was really interesting though, talking about the effects caused by the internet, and how ideas (like punctuation) travel so quickly, and change rapidly.

Recommendation: If you love punctuation, and witty sayings about it, you'll love this. Otherwise you'll probably enjoy looking at this picture infinitely more. 6/10