Welcome to Litsy!

So many different shades of yellow 💛📚💛

“Why, if there is alphabet soup, do we not have punctuation cereal?”

#Yellow
#CoverLove

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

#yellow #gratefulharvest @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

#yellowcover #jumpintojanuary

I am posting one book per day from my extensive collection. No description. No explanation. Some will be old. Some will be new. Don't judge me. I have a lot of books. Join the fun if you want.

#tbrpile
Original idea of- @StaceyKondla @cortg

Courtesy tags for @Trashcanman @Catherine_Willoughby

A collection of light essays on grammar, spelling, and pencils by a New Yorker copy editor. It is a delight of insider stories and orthographic questions like, "What is the plural possessive of McDonald's?" (A: McDonald'ses' but let's not.) If you have an opinion on the Oxford comma -- especially if your opinion is that people who call a serial comma "the Oxford comma" are faking sophistication -- then you are in the target audience.

Let's get one thing straight right from the beginning: I didn't set out to be a comma queen.

#FirstLineFridays
@ShyBookOwl

#purpleandyellowcovers
#flyhighjuly

⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 Written by a copy editor for The New Yorker, this book is definitely for a niche audience. Can you listen to a conversation about comma placement and say, “Yes! Thank you!” out loud? Then this is for you. Part memoir, part grammar primer, Norris is funny and relatable, but I did occasionally get bogged down & lose interest. English majors & other word nerds, this book is for you, but probably only for you.
April #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

#ispy a yellow cover @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

Next color is white! Show a white book cover, choose next color and tag folks

@mabell @marleed @TrishB

This book has everything: commas, Blackwing pencils, eraser reviews, and crying unrelentingly, which is that thing when a copy editor yells at you for not knowing how many t's The New Yorker would put in the word summit. (End Stefon voice)

Happy Monday from Lady Portia and the #library and #tbr stacks! #catsandbooks #catlover

With the San Juan Mtns in Colorado at 7 1/2 times their normal snowpack, I‘m taking a break from my CDT hike after the NM section & this book welcomed me home. Her humor & insights into copywriting at the New Yorker made it a lively read that I finished quickly. Norris explains grammar & punctuation well, evincing her care and rather strict approach while remaining open-minded and kind to others; the book is not a Truss-like venting, to my relief.

#yellowspines #springintoreading @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @vkois88

#uniqueread #anewchapter @vkois88 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Love this author!

Thank you! 😄 @sprainedbrain #kindlitsy

"'Whom' may indeed be on the way out, but so is Venice, and we still like to go there."

This book left me cold. I enjoyed the chapter on pencils (I love a good geek out over office supplies), but the descriptions of The New Yorker's working environment made it sound prickly, prescriptivist and unnecessarily fussy. Blah.

Funny and educational! Felt like a good read for finals week (does "finals" need an apostrophe?!)

100 percent accurate! What a fun and quick quiz. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/what-punctuation-mark-are-you/

I went to bed at 8:30 last night due to extreme tiredness. I then woke up at 1:30 am. I ended up reading the first 80 pages of this before going back to sleep. I‘m not as picky about grammar as Mary Norris is, but I‘m enjoying the stories about her life. I wanted to show off the 2 grammar books that have impacted my life: the AP Stylebook from my 4 years working for the school paper in high school/undergrad & the APA Handbook from library school.

A geeky book about all things grammar from commas to pronouns. I loved all the anecdotes, helpful hints, and reassurances that I'm not the only one that's picky about their writing utensils.

But what if I actually microwave it? Will my house burn down? "Probably" is the answer.

That's👏🏼not 👏🏼how👏🏼apostrophes👏🏼work👏🏼

Grey, rainy day, perfect for indoor pursuits. Taking a break from laundry to start this.

#spinepoetry #3. Because who doesn't love Junot Díaz?? #marchintoreading

I could not get through this book. It was interesting at first to see her passion of the structure of language but that excitement wore off quick. I can about half way through, but I just can't waste my time on this anymore.

Ready for a fibromyalgia recovery day. Trying a new trick I read about the other day. When I start losing focus I switch to the other book. Hoping this technique will keep me reading all day long.

This book makes my little English nerd heart so happy.

I needed a break after a couple of dark books and this hit the spot. It's a delightful book about grammar from the eyes of a New Yorker copy editor. It's light-hearted but informative with some memoir mixed in. A fun look behind the scenes.

my mother-in-law has excellent taste in books, grammar, and centerpieces (coffee my own)

"A colon is sometimes preferable to a semicolon if the thrust of the sentence is forward: you are amplifying something, providing a definition or a list or an illustration. The semicolon sets up a different relationship; whatever follows relates in a more subtle way to what came before. A dash can perform either of these services, but it is looser, less formal."

#MaryNorris #betweenyouandme #confessionsofacommaqueen #books #booksaboutwriting

Norris is witty, and fun; her advice is practical, and informative ... and then there's this tired line about the problems with gender-specific pronouns (a shame, when many of her thoughts on language seem original. She worked as a copy editor on The New Yorker for thirty years). Published in 2015 ...

This is part one of my #favplacetorelax - my crafting library! It's itty bitty, covered in piles of books, and there are bots of yarns and thread floating everywhere, but I love it. #augustphotochallenge

Mary Norris is delightful and hilarious. I saw her speak at the American Copy Editors Society a couple of years back. Her book—part memoir and part grammar primer—is 100 percent excellent. #24in48

And now for some non-fiction. #24in48

Just some grammar lessons this morning.

Bought this one at Powell's, I'm excited to read it!

I learned that I've got a LOT to learn!! I'm certainly not a grammar nazi but I could stand to improve my skills. This was a mixture of the proper usage of English with a few personal anecdotes tossed in. Definitely not a read-it-in-one-sitting kind of book, but slightly entertaining nonetheless.

If you can't get excited about hyphen placement, don't bother. For the rest of us, yippee!
Behind the scenes of copy-editing at The New Yorker. History and usage battles abound. Allan Fallow of The Washington Post blurbed it as porn for word nerds. He's right.

Absolutely wonderful from start to finish. I checked out my copy from the library but I'm gonna swing by the bookstore to get my own copy that I can mark up and turn to in the future. Any other grammar nerds out there, get on this.

Absolutely loving Between You & Me! Part memoir, part grammar book, part snarky commentary on language itself.

This is a charming book that is part biography and part grammar book. As a fan of the New Yorker, I love the anecdotes about the organization's inner workings. The chapter on pencils was also endearing. Basically, if you love words you will love this one. 🤓
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Enjoying the audio of this...

Between you and me, I LOVED this book. Who knew a copy editor could be so witty?

"And when Mr. Burns, on The Simpsons, finds out Homer's father, Abe Simpson, used to wrestle under the name Glamorous Godfrey, and shouts "You were he!" his excellent grammar marks him as a villain."

"I would never disable spell-check. That would be hubris. Autocorrect I could do without."