Eats Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

Pages read 37

Pages in book: 205

Genre: Nonfiction

This week I have started to read a book called: Eats Shoots & Leaves. This book is actually all about English grammar and is a very hard read. Saying that, isn't necessarily saying that it is full of hard words, it just isn't the kind of book that I would usually read. This book isn't all doom and gloom though, the author does use some quirky language, even though I can't say that I can relate to  her. She speaks about a feeling of pain and anguish whenever she sees bad punctuation.  I certainly am a little annoyed but not in the way that she describes it. This book, so far, is full of different examples of bad punctuation: from when a mistake in a letter, can change the meaning from, I love you, to, I absolutely despise you, to mistakes in punctuation causing wars. An example of this can be seen right in the title. The title can either be interpreted as eats, shoots (a gun) and leaves (walks away), or Eats, shoots (sprouting plant) and leaves (the kind that grow on trees). As you can see this kind of pun or play on words can cause some confusion. The author is even considering founding a small group of people who walk around in the dead of night, wearing balaclavas, with permanent markers to add on commas and apostrophe's wherever they are needed on signs and billboards.  I think I will enjoy the rest of this book despite what I said, because of the authors way of writing, even though I find her a little weird myself. If I where to compare this book to another it would probably be a giant, dictionary  plus a joke book. I think you should read this book if your grammar isn't the best, and definitely if your mother is recommending you read it, because of that reason.