Norris's writing is quite engaging in this book. I loved how she broke down different parts of her life and wove them in with facts and figures about grammar, dictionaries, and her love for (a specific kind of) pencils. I took so much away from this and might even get a hard copy for my personal library.

This book is exactly as satisfying as you would imagine a book about grammar from a New Yorker editor might be; which is to say, your mileage, she may vary, but for me, a thumbs up.

Probably the most charming and witty book about grammar and style out there. Very entertaining!

I had a really difficult time getting through this book. Even though I really wanted to like it I found it dull most of the time. There were a few brief enjoyable moments but overall my expectation was greater than the reality.

This quirky book in the tradition (?) of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves starts out wonderfully, with all sorts of fascinating trivia and small historical anecdotes; however, I felt that it didn't maintain the momentum well and that the author lapsed into a sort of self-satisfied smugness, veering more into the biographical and opinionated with increasingly fewer gems of information like the ones I found so charming at the outset.

I was also extremely distressed by her discussion of her trans sister in the pronouns section, where she purposefully misgenders her in the narrative in what I assume was a misguided attempt to take the reader along in her journey in learning how to afford her sister the basic respect she deserved. The entire story felt self-congratulatory, and had me grimacing right through the end. If you have any progressive or personal feelings about gender and pronouns, you'll get very little (aside, perhaps, from a nice, harsh triggering) out of this chapter and I'd encourage you to skip it.

Fun, and brings the tone of the New Yorker into the human realm with an enviable sense of humor and lightness.

I could hardly wait for this book to be over. I rushed through the last two chapters, just so I wouldn't have to pick it up again tomorrow. The book seems to try to be a reference and a memoir,and fails at both. Norris' humour is juvenile or just not funny. I found most of the book confusing, and full of all the wrong kinds of detail. In short, Norris needed an editor.

My mom gave me this book as a gift last year, appealing to my interest in grammar (line forms here, boys). In the intervening year and a half, I happened to actually become a copy-editor, so now the book was relevant to my industry as well. I loved every page of this book, from the nit-picky grammatical details to the amusing anecdotes. I was worried it might be stodgy, but it was anything but. Norris sees the copy-editor's purpose as to bring out the unfettered voice of the writer, changing only what makes the prose clearer and more understandable for the reader. She is a charming writer herself, and as a bonus, she swears like a longshore(wo)man.

I really loved this book. "Between You & Me" was the perfect blend of grammar education and personal anecdotes from a "New Yorker" copy-editor. She honestly probably has my dream job, so it was really interesting to read about how her brain worked, the grammar rules that bother her the most (personally, I hate that you shouldn't end a sentence in a preposition), and that she struggles to this day about some of the rules. I wish some grammar had been explained a little better, but overall, a really fantastic book for anyone interested in copy editing, the life of an editor, or grammar.

3.5 stars. I'm the perfect audience for this book as it combines two of my loves--The New Yorker and copy editing. It's probably not for everyone, and it's definitely not usually laugh-out-loud funny. But I enjoyed it.

"One of the things I like about my job is that it draws on the entire person: not just your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and usage and foreign languages and literature but also your experience of travel, gardening, shipping, singing, plumbing, Catholicism, midwesternism, mozzarella, the A train, New Jersey. And in turn it feeds you more experience." Just so.

"We copy editors sometimes get a reputation for wanting to redirect the flow, change the course of the missile, have our way with a piece of prose. The image of the copy editor is of someone who favors a rigid consistency, a mean person who enjoys pointing out other people's errors, a lowly person who is just starting out on her career in publishing and is eager to make an impression, or, at worst, a bitter, thwarted person who wanted to be a writer and instead got stuck dotting the i's and crossing the t's and otherwise advancing the careers of other writers."