verbingnouns

Of Novels and Grammar

I used to have a strict one-book-at-a-time policy. Recently, however, I’ve developed the habit of starting a new book while I’m in the middle of another. In fact, I’ve been in the middle of as many as five books in the past months. I finished two of them this week and that’s what I’m here to blog about.
First, I finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which a quite a delightful book. This classic novel by Betty Smith is the story of a young girl growing up in a very poor neighborhood of Brooklyn in the early twentieth century. Though not really an autobiography, Smith said the story has many similarities to her own childhood, not exactly the way things were but they way they ought to have been. There’s not high drama or exciting plot twists, but it really is a moving story; I found myself crying in several parts of it (and this is Something because I’m not usually one to cry at books or movies).
The second book I finished* was Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. I loved this book. I wish I would have written this book. In fact, there is really only one problem with Eats, Shoots & Leaves and that is people. “People?” you ask. Yes. People. You see, there are two kinds of people in this world: those who will read this book delighting in the nuances of the Oxford Comma and, with the author, desiring to form a militant branch of The Apostrophe Protection Society. These people already know most of the rules of punctuation and though we acknowledge different interpretations of the rules, delight in the rules nonetheless. The other type of people are those who desperately need the instruction from this book, but don’t give a rip about the rules of punctuation, don't see any problem with a sign that says “Book’s For Sale”, and didn't even notice whether I put that last comma inside or outside the quotation marks, much less question my usage. In fact, this type of person has long since stopped reading this post, taking no pleasure in punctuation humor. Shame on them!**

*Okay, I haven’t actually finished the book. I have about 5 pages left, but I’m pretty sure there won’t be a surprise ending. I intended to finish it today, but the exterminator came and sprayed my house during my lunch break. He’s quite a talker, so it takes the whole hour for him to spray, so I wasn’t able to finish reading my 5 pages. It was all worth it though because I learned all kinds of things (non bug-related) from the exterminator which I can hopefully pass on in another post.

**This post is bound to have at least a few punctuation errors in it. It’s one of those things that always happens when one is writing about punctuation sans editors.