by Lynne Truss.
Why its important to get you're punctuation, right!
To be honest, I wasn't quite sure how to take it when a friend I have been corresponding with for over fifteen years suddenly presented me with a book about punctuation. What was she trying to tell me?
On the whole, this book is an enjoyable read and talks a lot of sense. One glaring howler (which I have heard the author try to defend, unsuccessfully, on the radio): the subtitle of the book makes hyphen-free use of the phrase 'zero-tolerance'—so presumably the book is about how to adopt an approach to punctuation that is tolerant of the number zero!
Oh, yes, the book also contains one piece of unforgivable, feminist clap-trap, viz:
In fact one might dare to say that while the full stop is the lumpen male of the punctuation world (do one job at a time; do it well; forget about it instantly), the apostrophe is the frantically multi-tasking female, dotting hither and yon, and succumbing to burn-out from all the thankless effort.
…but don't let that put you off.