LYNNE TRUSS

By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful. The scene: a cottage on the coast on a windy evening. Inside, a room with curtains drawn. Tea has just been made. A kettle still steams. Under a pool of yellow light, two figures face each other across a kitchen table. A man and a cat. The story about to be related is so unusual yet so terrifyingly plausible that it demands to be told in a single sitting. The man clears his throat, and leans forward, expectant. 'Shall we begin?' says the cat...

Anxious about the apostrophe? Confused by the comma? Stumped by the semicolon? Join Lynne Truss on a hilarious tour through the rules of punctuation that is sure to sort the dashes from the hyphens. We all had the basic rules of punctuation drilled into us at school, but punctuation pedants have good reason to suspect they never sank in. 'Its Summer!' screams a sign that sets our teeth on edge. 'Pansy's ready', we learn to our considerable interest ('Is she?') as we browse among the bedding plants. It is not only the rules of punctuation that have come under attack but also a sense of why they matter. In this runaway bestseller, Lynne Truss takes the fight to emoticons and greengrocers' apostrophes with a war cry of 'Sticklers unite!'

The BBC Radio 4 series that inspired the bestselling book Eats, Shoots & Leaves. The runaway success of Eats, Shoots and Leaves brought millions of grammar geeks out of the closet and made it cool to care about punctuation. This is the radio series that started it all: five programmes in which Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation. She accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on a hunt for the ?greengrocer?s apostrophe?, enters the classroom to hear how children learn punctuation, and finds out whether anyone punctuates text messages. Talking to writers and experts like Fay Weldon and David Crystal, she discovers the origins of the comma in Greek drama and Gregorian chant, considers the case for ?semicolonic irrigation? and asks how a writer?s choice of punctuation expresses his tone of voice. Looking into the future, she wonders if ?emoticons? will put colons, commas and apostrophes on the endangered species list. Impassioned, informative and always amusing, this is an essential listen for anyone who loves language.

By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.The scene: a cottage on the coast on a windy evening. Inside, a room with curtains drawn. Tea has just been made. A kettle still steams.Under a pool of yellow light, two figures face each other across a kitchen table. A man and a cat.The story about to be related is so unusual yet so terrifyingly plausible that it demands to be told in a single sitting.The man clears his throat, and leans forward, expectant.''Shall we begin?'' says the cat ...

The stickler-tickling punctuation polemic is even more fun with the whimsical art of acclaimed New Yorker cartoonist Pat Byrnes The runaway bestseller that has everyone minding their p''s and q''s (and their commas and semicolons), Eats, Shoots & Leaves has delighted audiences around the world, sold more than 1.6 million copies in North America and elevated Lynne Truss to superstickler status among those in the know. Now the book is beautifully packaged with more than fifty vivid, full-color illustrations throughout by renowned cartoonist Pat Byrnes. Each illustration brings to life a different punctuation pitfall in a wickedly playful style that matches Truss''s trademark wit. We hope you''ll agree that it''s a chocolate-and- peanut-butter combination (even better than the sum of its parts). Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Illustrated Edition is also accompanied by a colorful foreword by wordsmith extraordinaire Frank McCourt.

Sticklers unite! The Queen of Zero Tolerance takes on the sorry state of modern manners, in the spirit of her three million copy worldwide bestseller, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves". 'Talk to the hand cause the face ain't listening', the saying goes. When did the world get to be so rude? When did society become so inconsiderate? It's a topic that has been simmering for years, and Lynne Truss says that it has now reached boiling point. Taking on the boorish behaviour that has become a point of pride for some, "Talk to the Hand" is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", "Talk to the Hand" is a spirited conversation, not a stuffy guidebook. It is not about forks, for a start. Why hasn't your nephew ever thanked you for that perfect Christmas present? What makes your builder think he can treat you like dirt in your own home? When you phone a utility with a complaint (and have negotiated the switchboard), why can't you ever speak to a person who is authorised to apologise? What accounts for the appalling treatment you receive in shops? Most important, what will it take to roll back a culture that applauds rudeness and finds it so amusing? For anyone who's fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (and is naturally too scared to confront the actual yobs), "Talk to the Hand" is a colourful call to arms - from the wittiest defender of the civilised world.

When social histories come to be written of the first decade of the 21st century, people will note a turning point in 2003 when declining standards of punctuation were reversed. Linguists will record Lynne Truss as the saviour of the semi-colon and the avenging angel of the apostrophe.

From the bestselling author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, a hilarious new book from Lynne Truss about her strange journey through the world of sport and sports journalism. Get Her Off the Pitch! is the story of one womans foray into the very masculine and rather baffling world of sport. Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves, spent four years as an unlikely sports writer for The Times. It was a job that took her around the world (via the most difficult journeys and least glamorous hotels) and introduced her to some of the greatest living sportsmen (and many argumentative men with clipboards). During her time at the newspaper she faced disdain from fellow sports writers; undertook last-minute, pre-fight research into The Rumble in the Jungle (Muhammad Ali won, surprisingly); tried unsuccessfully to interpret bizarre commentary and memorize results statistics; wept at football matches and discovered a lasting love for golf. She was even nominated for Sports Writer of the Year. Get Her Off the Pitch! is the hilarious, perceptive and at times moving account of those four strange years. It is perfect for those for whom sport is a matter of life and death, for those who have no idea what all the fuss is about and for everyone in between.

From the bestselling author of Eats Shoots & Leaves, an unexpectedly moving, luminously wise and brilliantly funny novel about a Victorian Poet Laureate. In July 1864, a corner of the Isle of Wight is buzzing with literary and artistic creativity. A morose Tennyson is reciting Maud to empty sofas; the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron is white-washing the roses for visual effect and the mismatched couple, actress Ellen Terry and painter G. F. Watts, are thrown into the company of the remarkable Lorenzo Fowler, the American phrenologist, and his daughter Jessie. Enter mathematician Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll), known to Jessie as the fiendish pedagogue, and Lynne Trusss wonderfully imaginative cocktail of Victorian seriousness and riotous farce begins to take flight.

From the bestselling author of Eats Shoots & Leaves, a wonderfully funny collection of twelve monologues. In the tradition of Alan Bennetts Talking Heads come Lynne Trusss twelve bittersweet tales about love, romance, friendship and family. Her six men and six women each have very different stories to tell, ranging from the wife who feels better when her husband disappears to the pedant who undergoes a TV makeover and the swimmer who cant escape the shadow of her sisterbut all are funny, touching and as beautifully observed as would be expected from the bestselling author. Whether describing fathers and daughters, married men, cat-lovers or other women, she is always brilliantly perceptive.

A wonderful comic novel from the bestselling author of Eats Shoots & Leaves. Belinda Johansson is a woman frantic, overwhelmed by the demands of work and home. Having it all? Pah. Belinda doesnt want any of it. Deep in research for her magnum opus a definitive account of the doppelganger in classic gothic fiction she fails to notice the echoes of these ghoulish tales disturbingly close at hand. For not only is the cleaning lady taking over her life, but the identity of her husband, Stefan, is also in question. Is he a harmless geneticist from Sweden, or actually a cunning clone? Why is the cleaning ladys previous employer having a breakdown, and what on earth has the rat circus got to do with any of this?

Lynne Trusss first novel, in which she shows herself to be one of the very best comic writers.It was nobodys fault, this widely held assumption that Come Into the Garden had long since sought eternal peace in the great magazine rack in the sky. Nevertheless, it required strength of character for those intimately acquainted with the title not to take the comments personally. After all, it was a bit like being dead but not lying down.Osborne Lonsdale, a down-at-heel journalist, mysteriously attractive to women, writes a regular celebrity interview for Come Into the Garden. This week his Me and My Shed column will be based on the charming garden outhouse owned by TV sitcom star Angela Farmer. Unbeknown to Osborne, driving down to Devon to interview Angela in her country retreat, the sleepy magazine has been taken over by new management. So it happens that Osbornes research trip is interrupted by a trainload of anxious hacks from London Lillian the fluffy blonde secretary, Michelle the sub-editor who has a secret crush on Osborne, and Trent Carmichael, crime novelist and bestselling author of S is for Secateurs!

By the bestselling author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves and Cat Out of Hell, a nail-biting tale of good versus evil involving one man, his dog and a group of 18th-century amateur scientific pioneers who just happen to be cats.When you are an inoffensive retired librarian with bitter personal experience of Evil Talking Cats, do you rescue a kitten from the cold on a December night?Do you follow up news items about cats digging in graveyards?Do you inquire into long-ago cats who voyaged around the world with Captain Cook?Well, yes. If you are Alec Charlesworth that is precisely what you do - with unexpected and terrifying consequences ...

A battle-cry for civilised behaviour from the author of the multi-million selling Eats, Shoots and Leaves. "Talk to the hand cause the face aint listening," the saying goes. When did the world get to be so rude? When did society become so inconsiderate? Its a topic that has been simmering for years, and Lynne Truss says that it has now reached boiling point. Taking on the boorish behaviour that has become a point of pride for some, Talk to the Hand is a rallying cry for courtesy. Like Eats, Shoots and Leaves, Talk to the Hand is a spirited conversation, not a stuffy guidebook. It is not about forks, for a start. Why hasnt your nephew ever thanked you for that perfect Christmas present? What makes your builder think he can treat you like dirt in your own home? When you phone a utility with a complaint (and have negotiated the switchboard), why cant you ever speak to a person who is authorised to apologise? What accounts for the appalling treatment you receive in shops? Most important, what will it take to roll back a culture that applauds rudeness and finds it so amusing? For anyone whos fed up with the brutality inflicted by modern manners (and is naturally too scared to confront the actual yobs), Talk to the Hand is a colourful call to arms from the wittiest defender of the civilised world.

SPECIAL PRICE FOR A LIMITED TIME One womans journal of single life on the margins. A brilliant collection of Lynne Truss journalism recording the life of a metropolitan refugee from coupledom. The alternative Bridget Jones. For seven long years, starting in The Listener in 1988 and continuing in The Times and Womans Journal, Lynne Truss has been trying to make her cat laugh. It has been an uphill task, which is why she deserves this book, a recognition of outstanding courage in the face of futility. Along the way, Margins, Single of Life and One Womans Journal have collected a band of devoted fans, yet still the cat remains unimpressed. Never have so many jokes about Kitbits been found in such concentration as in Making the Cat Laugh. But under the headings such as The Single Woman Considers Going Out but Doesnt Fancy the Hassle and The Single Woman Stays at Home and Goes Quietly Mad, we discover a writer not only obsessed with cats, but prone to over-reacting generally to news stories, shopping, passive smoking, Christmas, coupledom, boyfriends, snails, sheds, Andre Agassi, cooking instructions, requests of Hows the novel going? and personal remarks of any kind.

By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mesmerising tale of a cat with nine lives, and a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.The scene: a cottage on the coast on a windy evening. Inside, a room with curtains drawn. Tea has just been made. A kettle still steams.Under a pool of yellow light, two figures face each other across a kitchen table. A man and a cat.The story about to be related is so unusual yet so terrifyingly plausible that it demands to be told in a single sitting.The man clears his throat, and leans forward, expectant. Shall we begin? says the cat ...

Anxious about the apostrophe? Confused by the comma? Stumped by the semicolon? Join Lynne Truss on a hilarious tour through the rules of punctuation that is sure to sort the dashes from the hyphens. We all had the basic rules of punctuation drilled into us at school, but punctuation pedants have good reason to suspect they never sank in. Its Summer! screams a sign that sets our teeth on edge. Pansys ready, we learn to our considerable interest (Is she?) as we browse among the bedding plants. It is not only the rules of punctuation that have come under attack but also a sense of why they matter. In this runaway bestseller, Lynne Truss takes the fight to emoticons and greengrocers apostrophes with a war cry of Sticklers unite!

The punctuation workout for sticklers and rookies alike. The punctuation panda is back! Armed with a permanent marker, a smidgen of confidence, and a copy of Can You Eat, Shoot and Leave?, everyone now has the chance to become a member of the punctuation elite. Established punctuation sticklers:Fine-tune existing skills, taking guilty pleasure from testing your (already somewhat unsettling) seventh sense. Confused novices:Never again inflict flawed and perplexing punctuation on your innocent readers. The only official workbook for the international bestseller Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Introductory Cosmo-style questionnaire helps readers identify their level of punctuation prowess. Mirrors the structure and light-hearted style of Lynne Trusss hugely popular Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Topics include apostrophes, commas, colons and semicolons, hyphens and more. Each chapter concentrates on one particular punctuation mark. Origin, usage rules and their exceptions introduce the entertaining activities which have a challenge-yourself format. The bite-sized exercises in each chapter and longer texts in The Final Challenge put punctuation skills to the test. Specially designed for Kindle, with clear text throughout.