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Written by Lynne Truss - Audio book narrated by Lynne Truss et al - Unabridged Radio Essays - Nonfiction - 1 COMPACT DISC

Publisher, Penguin Audiobooks (April 2004)

"You don't need to be a grammar nerd to enjoy this one...Who knew grammar could be so much fun?" —Newsweek

In 2002, Lynne Truss presented Cutting a Dash, a well-received BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation ("A sparkling series of essays." —Daily Telegraph), which led to the writing of the U.K. number-one bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Presented here for the first time in America is the original landmark BBC Radio 4 program in its entirety.

We all know the basics of punctuation. Or do we? A look at most neighborhood signage tells a different story. Through sloppy usage and low standards on the internet, in email, and now text messages, we have made proper punctuation an endangered species. In Eats, Shoots & Leaves, former editor Lynne Truss dares to say, in her delightfully urbane, witty, and very English way, that it is time to look at our commas and semicolons and see them as the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a book for people who love punctuation and get upset when it is mishandled. From the invention of the question mark in the time of Charlemagne to George Orwell shunning the semicolon, this lively history makes a powerful case for the preservation of a system of printing conventions that is much too subtle to be mucked about with.

About the Author: Lynne Truss is a writer and journalist who started out as a literary editor with a blue pencil and then got sidetracked. The author of three novels and numerous radio comedy dramas, she spent six years as the television critic of The Times of London, followed by four (rather peculiar) years as a sports columnist for the same newspaper. She won Columnist of the Year for her work for Women’s Journal. Lynne Truss also hosted Cutting a Dash, a popular BBC Radio 4 series about punctuation. She now reviews books for the Sunday Times of London and is a familiar voice on BBC Radio 4. She lives in Brighton, England.