On the Shelf

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. 8220;Why?8221; asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. 8220;I8217;m a panda,8221; he says, at the door. 8220;Look it up.8221; The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation. 8220;Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots, and leaves.8221;

If you share the panda8217;s 8212; and Truss8217;s 8212; militant distaste for the misplaced comma, the missing apostrophe or the intrusive hyphen, this is the book for you. And even if you don8217;t, it guarantees a laugh a page and the odd sigh of agreement on the basic courtesies of proper punctuation.