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A review by xterminal
A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation by Noah Lukeman
4.0
Noah Lukeman, A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation (Norton, 2006)
Noah Lukeman's three writing guides (The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens, and this one) are wonderful little oases of good, old-fashioned common sense in a twisted thicket of how-to-write tomes. They are small, to the point, and quietly sure of themselves. They can be; the information contained therein is impeccable. If you haven't discovered Lukeman yet and you're an aspiring writer of any fictional stripe (and aren't we all?), hie thee to the bookstore, library, whatever and grab yourself a copy of The First Five Pages, about which I cannot say enough good things (though I tried when reviewing it a few years back). You can grab the other two in either order, I think.
This is a straight punctuation book; Lukeman starts with the most commonly-used punctuation marks, gives a quick overview of when they should (and shouldn't) be used, and then heads into more esoteric territory. All of it is good reads, even if you actually know most of this stuff heading into it. I did, and this still ended up being my favorite of the three; Lukeman is concise, witty, and a lot of fun without going over the top (as, say, Lynne Truss). ****
Noah Lukeman's three writing guides (The First Five Pages, The Plot Thickens, and this one) are wonderful little oases of good, old-fashioned common sense in a twisted thicket of how-to-write tomes. They are small, to the point, and quietly sure of themselves. They can be; the information contained therein is impeccable. If you haven't discovered Lukeman yet and you're an aspiring writer of any fictional stripe (and aren't we all?), hie thee to the bookstore, library, whatever and grab yourself a copy of The First Five Pages, about which I cannot say enough good things (though I tried when reviewing it a few years back). You can grab the other two in either order, I think.
This is a straight punctuation book; Lukeman starts with the most commonly-used punctuation marks, gives a quick overview of when they should (and shouldn't) be used, and then heads into more esoteric territory. All of it is good reads, even if you actually know most of this stuff heading into it. I did, and this still ended up being my favorite of the three; Lukeman is concise, witty, and a lot of fun without going over the top (as, say, Lynne Truss). ****