Bill Bryson- A Short History of Nearly Everything

This is one of those books that you can never read too many times, because there's so much in it that you can only absorb so much at once. I think I'm on my third go round. I use it to teach science class in elementary school, and it is phenomenal for that. Why not make science fun? Apparently Bryson agrees with me. No wonder I love him. That and he makes me laugh like a lunatic. Oh Bill, if only you weren't old and hirsute and married...

Bryson has a knack for picking out the most interesting characteristics of the people and things that he's writing about so that you want to read more. For example, Einstein is much more interesting as a genius who was terrible at math and wrote his seminal papers while working as a patent clerk, third class (his petition to become second class was rejected), than just as a genius. When he's writing about the first time that people became seriously concerned that a meteor might crash into the earth, and the realization that a meteor caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, he writes that by the time this notion was proposed by the scientific community (the 1970s), there had already been a movie called Meteor made, starring, in Bryson's words, a few major movie stars, "and a very large rock." Or something to that effect. He cracks me up!

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I ADORE Bill Bryson's books. But don't let that prejudice you. *lol* He really is phenomenal, and even if you have always been terrible at science (I'm okay at biology, so-so at chemistry, and awful at physics), you'll get this book, and learn a lot. And it makes you feel better about yourself as a person, too. One of the most respected astronomers (no, I can't remember his name, so sue me) thought that shadows on the moon were caused by migrating clouds of insects. That's gotta make anyone feel smart.

Lynne Truss- Eats, Shoots & Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation

I wholeheartedly admit that I care about punctuation. My kids in ENGL1020 did their class evaluations last week, and one of them complained that I care too much about "stuff like punctuation and rules", or something to that effect. And I do care. I proudly belong to the Facebook groups "I judge you when you use poor grammar" and "Good grammar is hot". The hubby proofreads my blogs every time I post so that I won't be caught making mistakes out there in the public realm. Yes, you might think I'm silly and sad, but that's just the way I am. And I'm glad to know that I'm not alone.

As a companion piece to Bill Bryson's Troublesome Words, I picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves at the public library last week. It is to punctuation what Bryson's book is to grammar: a completely hilarious, laugh-out-loud guide to how to write like an intelligent human being. I loved it. Truss covers apostrophes, commas, exclamation points, question marks, brackets, braces, parentheses, periods, semi-colons, hyphens, dashes, ellipses, strokes, and italics, and all with a wicked British sense of humour and a realization that us punctuation nuts are just that--nuts.

When I become a prof and am forced to teach a first year writing requirement class, I will not be using Strunk & White. I will not be using The Lively Art of Writing (the grammar & style guide that my high school used. Lively, it was not). I will be teaching the writing portion of my class using Troublesome Words and Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Why subject students to boring rote grammar lessons when they can learn it, and probably learn it better, from books that have a sense of humour? Hi, my name is Melissa, and I think that grammar & punctuation are important. Hopefully reading these books will make you think so too. If not, think about why you maybe haven't had a date in awhile: good grammar is hot.

Bill Bryson- Troublesome Words

I love Bill Bryson. Before last week, I had read every Bill Bryson book every published except for this one, but now I've read them all. Bryson mostly publishes travel books; they're non-fiction, but written more like novels or journals, and they're meant to be entertaining as much as informative. He also wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is the most fantastic educational book I've ever laid my eyes on. Bryson's books are the kind that make people stare at you on the subway because you're laughing like a lunatic for apparently no reason.

Troublesome Words functions both as a reference text, and as a great read. It really is about what it says it's about- troublesome words. You know, the ones that you use but don't really know what they mean, or the ones that you always misspell, even though you know that you should know better. Yes, it sounds boring, but it's not. It's Bill Bryson.

For example, did you know that there are about eight different kinds of inflation? There's inflation, deflation, hyper-inflation, disinflation, and stagflation. I certainly did not know that (although the hubby did, but that's because he's got a commerce degree). Did you know that "effete" is not a synonym for "effeminate"? It means exhausted and barren. I really thought that I knew what effete meant, but Bryson has enlightened me otherwise. That's why I love this book. It makes being wrong fun.

I can't seem to remember which words Bryson describes in a particularly funny way, but rest assured that they exist. I found this book highly entertaining, to the point that I stayed up reading it until 2:00 a.m. and reading passages aloud to the hubby who was in fact asleep. I know that a book like this might be an acquired taste, as grammar, spelling and punctuation aren't many people's cup of tea, but I know that enough of you are teachers and grad students to make posting this relevant. As my Facebook group listing says "I judge you when you use poor grammar." Harsh, but true. And why use poor grammar when learning how to have good grammar is so much fun?