“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. It’s full of jokes; true, but funny, stories; historical examples of how punctuation actually changed people’s lives in the past and genuine examples of misplaced punctuation marks accompanied by hilarious comments. Here and there a short funny poem or a quotation from a famous book saves the reader from being bored (“A cat has claws at the end of its paws. A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.”). All of it makes the book a very interesting read. Another impressive thing about the book is the passion, with which the author speaks about the main subject — English punctuation. The main purpose of the book is not to teach people to punctuate correctly (though the book does it), but to attract everyone’s attention to the deteriorating common usage of apostrophes, commas and semicolons. Lynne is doing her best to save English punctuation before it’s too late and there’s nothing more to save. “Why did the Apostrophe Protection Society not have a militant wing? Could I start one?”, she asks in the “Introduction”. And I must admit I sympathised with her feelings fully while reading the book for the first time, and now as I re-read it I still sympathise with her.

The book has given me a lot of useful tips presented in a lively, easy-to-understand manner. I might disagree with the author in some cases (for example, when she attacks emoticons, rather unfairly from my point of view), but I’m very grateful to her for writing this book and to Rosemary for sending it to me. It has helped me to rediscover the English language and given me quite a few minutes of true joy. I highly recommend it, especially if you are often in doubt whether to write “it’s” or “its”. Lynne explains the difference in such a way that you will never forget.

What is the difference between a colon and a semicolon? Are you for or against the Oxford comma? When was the apostrophe used in the English language for the first time? “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” will help you answer all these and many other questions.

It’s a really special book.