Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols, and Other Typographical Marks
“IfEats, Shoots & Leaveswhetted your appetite on the subject of punctuation, then you have a treat in store.Shady Charactersis an authoritative, witty, and fascinating tour of the history and rationale behind such lesser known marks as the ampersand, manicule, the pilcrow, and the interrobang. Keith Houston also explains the octothorpe—otherwise known as the hashtag—and and my final comment on his book is #awesome.” (Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad)“Make no mistake: this is a book of secrets. With zeal and rigor, Keith Houston cracks open the &, the #, the † and more—all the little matryoshka dolls of meaning that make writing work. Inside, we meet novelists, publishers, scholars and scribes; we range from ancient Greeks to hashtagged tweets; and we see the weird and wonderful foundations of the most successful technology of all time.” (Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore)“I'm a sucker for this stuff. The @ is called chiocciola (snail) in Italian! The & was once taught as a letter of the alphabet! The manicule has been with us for a millennium! Thank you, Keith Houston, for bringing these little mysteries out of the shadows of typographic history.” (Constance Hale, author of Vex, Hex, Smash and Smooch and Sin and Syntax)“For fans of Lynn Truss'sEat's, Shoots, and Leaves, this bestiary of lesser-known punctuation marks is a wonder.” (Publishers Weekly)“Funny, surprising, and, of course, geeky.” (Michael D. Schaffer and John Timpane - Philadelphia Inquirer)“Might make you look at books… in an entirely new way.” (Andrew Robinson - Nature)“Houston…is a tireless researcher and an amiable teacher.” (Jan Gardner - Boston Globe)“A pleasurable contribution to type history, particularly for readers who haven’t considered the ampersand in any detail.” (Carl W. Scarbrough - New Criterion)“Fascinating.” (Rob Kyff - The Courant)