Lynne Truss - Author

Murder by Milk Bottle

If you’re in need of a comfort read, you won’t go wrong with the latest in the Constable Twitten mysteries. Former literary editor, Lynne Truss, has spun a series that’s got all the hallmarks of a cosy crime including curious deaths (yes indeed by milk bottle), period setting and cast of fun and familiar characters.   At the centre is Constable Twitten who’s out to solve a brutal and baffling trio of murders. Gory and nasty this book is not; the story’s more madcap than menace. So leave your desire for dark drama – and at times your disbelief – at the door. Just follow by-the-book Twitten as he seeks to stop more blood and milk being spilt. Many readers will know Truss as a humorous grammarian and author of Eat, Shoots & Leaves, and she’s captured the same sense of playfulness with this charming seaside farce. 

Cat Out of Hell

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...

Get Her Off the Pitch! How Sport Took Over My Life

Featured on The Book Show on Sky Arts on 29 October 2009. In Lynne Truss’s varied career in journalism her four years spent as a sports columnist perhaps seemed the most unlikely but she made a success of those four years and here she recalls some of the highs and lows with hilarity and charm.  

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Make a Difference

A fantastic guide to punctuation, specifically commas, for children (although we're sure there are a few adults who could use the help too!). These fantastic illustrations show children how the position of a comma in a sentence can make a huge difference to its meaning.  It's a charming and funny book that will make grammar fun for your child.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves

This review is provided by bookgroup.info.Lynne Truss begins by thanking all the writers, editors and hundreds of members of the public who responded to articles in The Daily Telegraph, The Author and Writers' News and Truss writes that it was good to know that she was not alone in her zero tolerance to punctuation. There are a lot of them out there. Or should I say us? This book has made me realise that there are others just like me and that I too, am a stickler and have 'Punctuitis' (as I like to call it), albeit quite mildly. This is the whole point of the book. Either you get upset about punctuation or you don't. My entire family see my 'Punctuitis' as a sad, lonely sort of condition, brought on entirely by oneself and the hallmark of a petty, small minded and pedantic sort of person. That used to make me feel a bit sad. It's true, I'm not altogether happy that I am the sort of person who feels faint at greengrocers' signs and is moved to take a paintbrush to billboard hoardings and correct the wretchedly mis-punctuated film Two Weeks Notice. Why is there no apostrophe? If it were one week, then surely the missing item would have been spotted.Truss observes; "Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't." The rung bells are the important matters of redundant or missing apostrophes, meaningless commas and sprinklings of dots and dashes like an awful rash. In this world of plummeting standards the stickler is continually tormented. "The sight of the plural word "Book's" with an apostrophe in it will trigger a ghastly private emotional process similar to the stages of bereavement, though greatly accelerated." When words such as phenomena, media and cherubim are treated as singular, I feel rage building up inside. Truss offers some very practical advice for those suffering from more extreme forms of 'Punctuitis', such as; if you take hyphens seriously you will surely run mad and it's best to remember them only to avoid serious cases of letter collision. Also, never forget that a comma may become a life or death matter and the "yob's comma" is a well-known and well-documented affliction which appears to be spreading and may achieve pandemic status, if aggressive treatment is not applied. This book certainly did ring bells for me and I was transfixed, muttering agreement, sharing the small shocks and generally behaving very strangely from page one. My rational side knows that there are more important things in life and that I should observe the errors, maybe privately correct them and then just get over it. Alas, sticklers simply cannot do this. 'Punctuitis' has rendered us incapable, forever stuck in a routine of correction, locked at some stage of development, which cannot progress. Do not expect this book to help you to overcome your impatience with poor punctuation. It is not soothing, but instead offers a pro-active rallying cry to all sticklers. The fact that Eats, Shoots & Leaves has been a runaway success does not surprise me at all. The book's success is testament to the fact that there are an awful lot of us out there and we are getting angry. Truss has given us a voice and now is the time to use it - get tough, fight the crisis and adopt a zero tolerance to poor punctuation. Good for you, Lynne!Sarah Broadhurst's view...This witty, informative, delightful bestseller on punctuation comes into a neat little paperback with a pull-out sheet of commas for you to be able to correct public notices when you see the need!  I think everyone should own a copy.

“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.