Originally posted 18 June 2016 on www.boldface.com.au:
I received a very charming book in the mail the other day.
Punctuation..? is a short, handsome book from User Design, a typesetting and illustration business based in Leicester, United Kingdom.
With 21 explanations of punctuation marks, all accompanied by fun illustrations, the book would make a nice stocking stuffer or Happy Day Surprise with the word geek in your life (e.g. editor, writer, young human with an interest in words).
I quite liked the pages on the pilcrow, was reminded of the guillemets, and learned that curly brackets are used to ‘indicate a series of equal choices’ such as when deciding between {sausage, cheese, a sandwich, pretzel}?
A few of the uses may be regional; I wasn’t familiar with them, e.g. round parentheses to ‘indicate optional words that imply some doubt’ as in the sentence (directed at a police officer), ‘Listen mate (Bobby), you do not want to mess with me.’
And I guess that would be my only suggestion for another edition (this is in its second edition already). Styles change. Usage of punctuation changes, and is not the same in different cultures. While the book does point out some of these differences, for example, the use of double quotation marks being common in North America, and single quotation marks in the United Kingdom, a preface or introduction would be nice to set the scene.
The book is available from Waterstones and some other bookshops in the UK, as well as Amazon, but check out the book’s website for more information.