Rating: 
Summary: Never a Misplaced ,.!;:"?'()][- Again
Review: First, I sadly confess that I much prefer the earlier edition of this book. I can't really tell exactly what has been added to this edition, except to acknowledge that it is longer. The beauty of the first book was that after you looked up whatever you needed to look up, you couldn't put it down. The book still has the same effect, but with a more compelling sense that you really ought to put it down because you have something better to do. I suspect that what has been added is mere "filler": stuff to puff the book up so that people won't mind paying more for it.Nonetheless, this still is the best manual of form to have. It is so remarkably clear, that a textbook review committee would probably wonder whether some mistake had been made. Simply look up the punctuation mark in question in the clearly labeled table of contents, and your question will be answered in no time. Better yet, reserve a Sunday afternoon to read the book cover to cover, and never have a punctuation question again. Yes, I did say read it cover to cover. Ms. Gordon has done for manuals of grammar what Dorothy Parker did for book reviews, or Judith Martin does for etiquette. This is quite an enjoyable romp with cross-eyed scholar-poets, that prima donna [Too-Too LaBlanca], and Torquil and Jonquil, (who will accompany you to the spa on Epiphany, if you accompany them to Ornette Coleman's recital afterwards [sic]). So I must admit, even though I don't think the second edition is any improvement over the first, I still think this book is miles beyond any other of its kind. You may wish to have a more complete manual of style, as this book covers punctuation only, but you will still benefit from having this book. A complete manual of style will devote only a few pages to punctuation, and give few examples; its instructions will never be clear. With The Well-Tempered Sentence by your side, however, you will never punctuate incorrectly again.
Rating:
Summary: Loona is with us again!
Review: From the author of "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" and "Torn Wings and Faux Pas" comes another humorous reference for remembering and learning proper punctuation. This edition is a revised edition of "The Well-Tempered Sentence" and adds guidelines for dealing with those pesky apostrophes, slashes, and italics. Although I love reading about the escapades of Loona and have recommended this book to others, this book is not for everyone. If large or uncommon words frighten you, then you will be frightened by this book. Even if I tell students that once you are used to the language, this book is great, many don't want to take the time to acclimatize themselves. This is a shame because this is a great book. If only more grammar books were a treat to read! I would highly recommend adding this book to your reference collection or taking the time to refresh your punctuation skills.
Rating:
Summary: Loona is with us again!
Review: From the author of "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" and "Torn Wings and Faux Pas" comes another humorous reference for remembering and learning proper punctuation. This edition is a revised edition of "The Well-Tempered Sentence" and adds guidelines for dealing with those pesky apostrophes, slashes, and italics. Although I love reading about the escapades of Loona and have recommended this book to others, this book is not for everyone. If large or uncommon words frighten you, then you will be frightened by this book. Even if I tell students that once you are used to the language, this book is great, many don't want to take the time to acclimatize themselves. This is a shame because this is a great book. If only more grammar books were a treat to read! I would highly recommend adding this book to your reference collection or taking the time to refresh your punctuation skills.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing excuse for a punctuation guide
Review: I am rarely incited to write a bad review of a book, but this was a very unfortunate purchase. The "cuteness" of the examples cannot make up for the slipshod rules and principles presented in this book. There are many outright mistakes (insofar as one can consider prescriptive usage rules to be mistakes), and the author is obviously more interested in providing an entertaining read than in providing any kind of useful book on punctuation. On top of that, many of the examples used are downright badly written, and will not at all help anyone who is seeking to improve their writing. This book would have benefited from a more descriptive approach, showing how punctuation IS used, rather than how she feels it SHOULD be used. And an index would really be useful as well, for referring back to the book when in doubt. I think the lack of index shows that this book is meant more as a trivial entertainment than any kind of useful reference book.
Rating:
Summary: The best little punctuation handbook in the universe!
Review: I first purchased this wonderfully entertaining handbook in the mid 1980s when I had my own word processing business. This little book is worth its weight in gold and then some. I can always count on finding the correct usage in this book where other reference books have failed or have skirted over an issue entirely. An excellent reference book, The Well-Tempered Sentence is a delightful read as well. It's a must have for any reference library! Once you read this book, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll never be without it, and you'll recommend it to strangers in the street (or at least your friends and associates).
Rating: 
Summary: The New Well-Tempered Sentence
Review: I purchased this book for an online class on grammar and punctuation. The book is an excellent resource for punctuation. It succinctly explains when to use each form of punctuation and has many examples. However, the examples are all bizarre sentences that make sense grammatically but not necessarily in reality, such as, "After this string of scurrilous anecdotes, she sprinkled the lawn with pearls." Even passages that are identified as footnotes can be bizarre. "A footnote, wearin' a cowboy boot: These lyrics are sung in an amphitheater with clotheslines draped over the stage and out into the audience. Most of the time the cowboys are washing their silk teddies and underpants studded with red rhinestone hears and rhinestone-eyed cows, and hanging them to dry." The sentences are used as a stylistic device to make the book less like a grammar textbook and more interesting to read. That is an admirable goal, when it comes to a book on punctuation, but the device is used to excess. The book also contains many illustrations, described by the front jacket as "whimsical graphics." They seem intended to give the book a Gothic look. Being somewhat conventional, I did not like the fact that the majority of captions had nothing to do with the images; instead, they were just odd sentences. Also, between this book and the author's grammar guide, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, there are an awful lot of pictures of naked, or half-naked, women, bordering on gratuitousness. My complaints aside, I do not doubt the author's command of the rules of punctuation. This book does an excellent job of describing the proper use of punctuation. I have consulted it several times while writing this review to answer questions like "Is a restrictive adjective clause set off by commas?" I am keeping The New Well-Tempered Sentence as a reference book in my library.
Rating:
Summary: A treat for the eyes' ears
Review: In _The New Well-Tempered Sentence_, Karen Elizabeth Gordon acts as arbiter elegantiae of punctuation. If she is less cheerfully infallible than Fowler, she is also more of an artist of English. Ms. Gordon has great fun playing with the language, and readers are invited to share in the merriment. The first two sentences of her chapter on commas speak for themselves:"A comma is a delicate kink in time, a pause within a sentence, a chance to catch your breath. A curvaceous acrobat, it capers over the page." You'll be entertained with examples haunted by a bizarre cast of characters going about their strange and Gothic business. Keep it on your reference shelf, somewhere between William Zinsser's _On Writing Well_ and Strunk and White's _The Elements of Style_.
Rating:
Summary: The New Well-Tempered Sentence
Review: Learn to puncuate, to write perfect sentences and never get bored. The best book on sentence structure ever. If you are a writer or strugling student you have to have this. 500% better than any textbook.
Rating:
Summary: Divine!
Review: Since its publication, I have given literally several dozen copies of this splendid, amusingly informative book to friends, to fellow writers, to students, and to anyone with either a passion for language or problems with grammar. It is unique in its wonderfully Gothic approach to conveying the odd and sometimes illogical rules of English grammar. It is also just plain fun. Absolutely a must for anyone even the least bit confused about just where a semi-colon goes, or when to use serial commas. Along with the Rodale Synonym Finder and the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, this is a book that lives next to my desk--always. Top marks! There's absolutely nothing, anywhere, that comes near this charming, clever little language guide.
Rating: 
Summary: I hate this book
Review: The author attempts to be witty, but just ends up being unclear. This sentence is supposed to be an example of comma use: The disconsolate child picked up the rubber remnants of his glorious red balloon and felt, in the flabby skin of such pathos, a darkness in the depths of his rubber soul. Here's another: The oleaginous hors d'oeuvres were followed by beakers of vodka, remorse, and cold soup. Here's a very classy example of the use of quotation marks: The tampon ad read: "First she was a woman - then she was a teenager." I was puzzled that the author chose to explain that in Spanish the question mark comes before the sentence, inverted, and also right end up at the end. In the section about the exclaimation point she also explained about the use of the explaination point in Spanish. I have no idea why. The rest of the book is about English. I also hate the fact that the back page of this book is an ad for another one of her books. I did learn a couple new things about punctuation from the book, but it was a very winding path getting there. This book has all the pathos of a bunch of oleaginous hors d'oeuvres.
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