"Comma Queen" -- so much nicer than the pejorative "Grammar Nazi", don't you think? I've always been partial to "Word Nerd" but that doesn't convey the same emphasis on mechanics, I suppose.

3.5 stars out of 5. Norris has written a charming little memoir that tickled my fancy in just the right ways. She enthuses about usage and etymology and writing in a way that reminds me of my favorite college professors, and comes across as the sort of good-natured philanthrope you would like to share a kettle of tea with. The instructional/educational grammar lessons run a bit long but are balanced well by her personal anecdotes, and the examination of traditional grammar rules within contemporary contexts (i.e. how pronoun use gets muddled when a sibling comes out as transsexual, and a delightful, unexpected chapter on a surge in published profanity) makes for lively reading.

Loved the chapter on pencil preferences. Found some of the chapters on grammar baffling. I did know English had that many tenses.

Highly enjoyable! Kind of an odd mix of personal memoir with grammar guide, but it was a fun read. Not sure it would be everyone's cup of tea, but as I spend my days writing and editing, it was a great explanation of some things I deal with on a daily basis.

Truly delightful. This made me laugh out loud several times, taught me a few things about grammar, and made me feel more partial to The New Yorker than ever before.

It was a very interesting, meta experience to do this as an audiobook instead of in print. Mostly I feel really vindicated that I'm not the only person who gets VERY passionate about people who use crappy grammar and punctuation, and I'm especially annoyed with things like "with Jessica and I," a mistake that, interestingly, is pretty much exclusively employed by the educated class to sound fancy (read: pompous) and is actually just plain incorrect.

I got a little bored towards the end, and occasionally Norris' own classist attitudes came through a bit too strong. I'm not impressed with technophobes or snobs who disparage any part of internet culture because they want to legitimize themselves as old school and fancy, and she throws that stuff in a lot. Pronouns these days are an especially fraught and fascinating subject, and she shows an utter lack of awareness or care for the social justice elements of them (or anything else. She says awfully insensitive things about her trans sister, for example) and instead calls ze/hir pronouns something out of "internet groups dedicated to bondage" (slight paraphrase since you can't just look things up in an audiobook). I doubt that, but even if it's true, that's a hugely reductive and rude thing to say when genderless pronouns, while in flux, are not something petty or oversensitive.

So yeah. The straight-up grammar talk and anecdotes about working at (pretentious, pompous, but nonetheless relevant to American culture) The new Yorker? Yes. Elitism? Present, but would be nicer if it weren't.

Entertaining and enlightening.

This had been on my "want to read" for years. It's a good book, particularly towards the end, but I think I'm just less interested in the minutiae of copy editing than I thought I was.

DNF - this was very dry and a bit pretentious. I was going into it thinking it would be a hybrid memoir and handy grammar guide, but it just turned out to be a fairly conservative prescriptivist explaining (poorly) why there is only One Right Way to construct a sentence. And her chapter on pronouns was.....tone deaf at best.

I must have missed the memo: this isn't a book about the English language as much as it is a memoir of a copy-editor's relationship with the English language throughout the course of her tenure at the New Yorker (which would have been fine if I was interested in that sort of thing). I didn't find it funny, educational, or endearing. I didn't even find it organized or consistent, let alone engaging. It felt trifling at best, stifling and elitist at worst (only poetry and classics are allowed to be creative, all other attempts are scorned; Americans aren't proper enough or intellectual enough to be allowed the use of the semicolon). Often she would make a blanket statement about proper punctuation usage, only to follow it with an example of a renowned author doing the opposite with great success. I nearly quit reading multiple times, but pushed through...it was only 200 pages, and I spent hardcover prices on it for goodness' sake. I'm sure all of my erroneous punctuation here would make her cringe, and this thought, at least, provides me with a moment's joy.

Recommended for those with an interest in:
- the New Yorker
- memoirs
- feeling like you're in high school English again
- non-creative writing
- pencils (and other casualties of the technological era)
- name dropping
- tips on being a proper grammar Nazi

Okay, I'm being too snarky. Admittedly, the author made multiple comments about restraint on the part of the editor, allowing improper grammar in order to let the magic of a sentence really show, etc. I just don't like memoirs much and I'm allergic to inside-the-box thinking.

I received this book from Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.

I have to agree with the other one star review. I was disappointed to find this book to be neither a confessional nor comical. I found it to be arrogant and condescending.