Rating: 
Summary: This book if NOT for American punctuation!!!
Review: All these people saying how great this book is, only shows they are missing the boat. This is for BRITISH punctuation, which in many cases is NOT the same as American. You are much better off getting an AMERICAN book such "Your Own Words" by Barbara Wallraff.From the cover there are errors with this book...it's ZERO-TOLERANCE, and it keeps that up, yet she dares to set herself up as a standard? Worse, I think it the height of soddy manners to laugh at someone else's problems.
Rating: 
Summary: Self-concious about puncutation now
Review: I had been seeing this odd title scattered throughout my Internet travels, but had no idea what it was. When I had a chance to get a free copy of the book, I jumped on it, wanting to know what it was all about. My friends have many reasons to think me odd and my choice of books is one of them. Only Douglas, they might think, could get excited about a book on punctuation. While I wholeheartedly agree that I am odd in many ways, many other people in Britain and America have found this book interesting as well. It is reassuring to know, sometimes, that I am not alone in my madness. While the subject matter, the use (and abuse) of punctuation such as apostrophes, commas, semicolons and the like, may seem dry to most people, Truss' (oh, goodness, I hope I placed that apostrophe correctly) writing style is light, humorous and dry as a Los Angeles summer. I regularly found myself laughing out loud at some of her examples of horrible punctuation, and then quietly wondering to myself if I had committed similar faux pas in my own writing over the years. Misplaced commas and apostrophes, abused or forgotten semicolons and colons not only make us look a bit foolish, but hamper the very communication we are desperately trying to achieve. A few years ago, Lynne Truss presented a show on BBC Radio 4, Cutting a Dash, where she developed many of the ideas and examples for this book. Only in the UK could you have support for a regular show about punctuation. You have to love the British sometimes. This edition for American audiences is exactly the same as the British version and might throw some American readers for a loop. Fear not, though. Even if you don't know what a "high street" is, or stumble over the concept of a "green grocer", the lessons, humor and fun of this book come through. If I ever had to study punctuation as a class again, I certainly hope this would be my textbook. In fact, this book might just help students find the fun, and usefulness, of the English language better than dry dissertations on the use of the semicolon. While Eats, Shoots & Leaves has left me a bit self-conscious about my own writing, the refresher course in punctuation will serve me well for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: No wonder this book is #1
Review: I take it no one knows the panda joke where the panda describes what a dictionary definition of a Panda is, while taking the mickey over the punctuation over the definition. The definition should've been "Eats shoots and leaves", whereas the Panda reads out the definition as "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" in relation to a sexual act. I just laughed at a previous comment where the reviewer didn't get the joke. Its a witty, excellent book.
(Any punctuation mistakes in the above review could be rather embarrassing so please leave me in ignorance, as it is bliss.)
Other recommendations "The Five People You Meet In Heaven", and "He Never Called Again."
Rating:
Summary: funny and makes a point...but not good teaching book
Review: Since I am Brit, raised in US part-time, I always find myself with one foot on each side of the Pond in situations such as this. I love droll British humour. If you do not, then skip this book. If you are looking for some way to brush up your writing, look for something better since this is not for Americans. Also, please understand, despite her self "rant" of doing it "write", she has errors in her books (even on the cover)! Also, a book on punctuation for Britain is NOT good punctuation book for America. There are many differences So, if you snatch up this book and use it to brush up - you might be doing a lot of things very wrong in punctuation. Britain has a "Tight Little Island" feel, they often do not bother to look at the rest of the world and see their way is not the only way. This book is a prime example of that. Also, I was dismayed by the writer's obsessing with a comma, to the point of displaying VERY BAD MANNERS. One should never make fun of shortcomings in other; one should never do it publicly as she claims she does. It shows a distinct lack of breeding. Manner should never go out of style. So, if you want a wee giggle and love dry Brit humour, you might enjoy this. If you want a real book for American usages buy "New York Public Library Writer's Guide to Style and Usage".
Rating:
Summary: So very British
Review: Only an Englishwoman would vent for two hundred pages on the proper uses of the comma and the apostrophe. "Two hundred pages of apostrophes!" you exclaim.
"Yes, and commas," come the reply.
"What on earth could she say in two hundred pages that which a fourth former could not learn in a semester at Hotchkiss?" you muse. And indeed that is the very point Ms. Truss raises. A book like this is necessary because grammar and punctuation are no longer taught in school, even in England. So a review is necessary before we Americans drown in a sea of missed directions and misplaced modifiers. Fortunately for fourth formers at Hotchkiss, and even Andover and Woodberry Forest, Ms. Truss is funny in the dry, boring way that the British are most often funny. Now I know about Monty Python and if you are expecting that kind of humor, you will be sorely disappointed. If, however, you simply wish to laugh as you write the last great prep school novel in a form that indicates you in fact attended prep school, buy this book. If that seems like a lot to ask for the sake of a comma, check it out of the library. Thank you.
Rating: 
Summary: A waste. Many books on the market that are much better.
Review: My headline says it all. Another author riding their 15 minutes. If you are serious about writing then pick up the NY Times Style Guide. It is a soild, time tested piece of work that many wirting professionals refer to again and again. It is considered the "gold standard" for the industry. If you want a quick read with references that those here in America will have trouble relating to, then get this.
Rating:
Summary: Punctuation Helps Represent REALITY!!
Review: I have not yet read the substance of this book, though I have ordered it. But in reading reviews of it as well as descriptions of the content, I am enormously impressed. As a senior psychologist now having done professional work for 46 years it is axiomatic to me that human beings, while being emotionally neurotic and even psychotic in a variety of ways, inevitably also have enormous difficulties with REALITY. (As of course do all living organisms.) (To counter the absurd idea that "no one really knows what REALITY is" I offer the simple definition: REALITY is "what exists.") In this regard it is language -- including words, meanings, concepts, punctuation -- which help our brains understand and interpret external (and internal) REALITY. The more precise and accurately we use language, in its various forms, the more effective we may potentially be in dealing with the difficulties of what has been called our being-in-the-world. This book, obviously interesting and written with great charm, has an additional and unusually important value in calling our attention to the difficulties of perceiving, understanding and interpreting REALITY -- so that we, as human beings, may be more self-benefiting and less self-defeating. Even before reading it fully, I can say I LOVE this book.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and educational!
Review: I'm the ideal audience for this book: I'm a stickler for grammar and punctuation. The book is a light and enteraining read, and I was surprised at how much I learned, since I'm a professional writer and I thought I had paid attention in school. Every English-speaker needs to read this book!
Rating:
Summary: one good page in ten
Review: I suppose it would be a bit unfair to compare Eats, Shoots and Leaves to the old Monty Python advice on how to play the flute ("you blow in here and move your fingers up and down the outside"), but only a bit. There are twenty or so pages of usable information, of the stultifyingly basic sort you can find in a middle-school grammar book. The rest consists of forced jollity, embarrassing paeans to various punctuation marks ("But colons and semicolons--well, they are in a different league, my dear! They give such a lift!"), a bit of not-too-dull history, and shallow evocations of famous writers. One is left wishing Truss took a zero-tolerance approach to literature or elementary logic as well as punctuation. She reminds me of those primly dressed ladies one sees at classical music recitals, who sit throughout the performance with their faces fixed in grimaces of pleasure, but then if you try to talk with them afterward it becomes clear they haven't understood a single note. Because, of course, that's not really the point. The point is to show oneself to be a Cultured Person Who Appreciates the Finer Things, and thus superior to those who don't. I highly recommend this book for the class-insecure. People who care about language, as opposed to people who care about looking like they care about language, would do better to read Barbara Wallraff's new book, Your Own Words. It's wittier, less cloying, more interesting and far more sophisticated. Truss is an amateur, Wallraff is a professional, and the difference couldn't be more obvious. Anyway, the sentence "I'm a legitimate punctuation mark, get me out of here," which appears on page 36 of Truss, is a comma splice on both sides of the Atlantic. It breaks the rules--not that this is necessarily wrong. But it neatly demonstrates the fallacy of espousing a "zero tolerance approach" to any but the most banal of language questions.
Rating:
Summary: A VEDDY BRITISH VOICE FOR THIS READING
Review: A grammarian's delight; a stickler's paradise; and first aid for the punctuation deprived. "Eats, Shoots, & Leaves" is all that, and great, good fun especially when read in the veddy British voice of the author. "Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Cutting A Dash" is where and when it all began. That was a hit BBC series that had the Brits smiling and watching their periods and question marks. Next, it became a book, which was a bestseller in the UK with 335,000 copies sold in just four weeks. (The title, by the way, comes from a joke about a poorly punctuated wildlife manual). In this day of instant messaging Ms. Truss fears that punctuation may become extinct, a thought that makes her tremble. Seriously, for the uninformed, how could we possibly express a true meaning without the aid of punctuation. For instance, consider: "A woman, without her man, is nothing." Or, "A woman, without her, man is nothing." All the difference in the world. Ms. Truss is sheer delight, her wit is unstoppable and irresistible. Listen and learn while you have a wonderful time doing it. - Gail Cooke
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