It includes information for beginners (the innocent and the eager), but it has something to offer professional copy editors, who are no doubt among the doomed. It is the rare book that speaks passionately, positively and with much personification about punctuation. Consider the following from the introduction:

"However frenzied, disarrayed, or complicated your thoughts may be, punctuation tempers them. We rarely give these symbols a second glance: they’re like invisible servants in fairy tales — the ones who bring glasses of water and pillows, not storms of weather or love."

What follows are 15 chapters divided among major marks of punctuation, from the ubiquitous comma, hyphen and apostrophe to the pedestrian period. Most marks are introduced with their own encomium: "Periods convene to create ellipses." "A comma is a delicate kink in time." "The promiscuous hyphen is game for liaisons with anyone." 

Each chapter uses a bullet-point format to explain the particulars of usage, and they are organized from the standard to the obscure. The bullet points are followed by examples that put the rules in context. Sometimes, however, the flourish of Gordon’s examples eclipses the rule being exhibited. The semicolon’s duty is almost overshadowed in this sample sentence: "The little maestro slept fitfully; the cellist practiced relentlessly; the house pets conversed softly with the maid."

Here’s another: " … trysts beneath the honeysuckle … forming a threesome with a dentist and his tango partner … ." Ahem. That sentence is, presumably, meant to illustrate how ellipses can imply that there is more information than the author reveals.

You may not have the patience for this style of writing, and you should be warned that Gordon differs from AP style on many points. To begin with, she uses the serial comma in the book’s subtitle, though she does acknowledge that it is not used in journalism. As for putting a comma before Jr. or Sr. in a name, Gordon goes both ways. She also suggests hyphenating compounds such as African-American in all circumstances and proper nouns such as in "Moral-Majority-lack-of-perspective." Although the book is often exhaustive in its coverage of punctuation, she misses an opportunity in the chapter about quotation marks. She doesn’t explain how the mark is omitted at the close of a paragraph when quoted material from the same source opens the next paragraph. 

Overall, The New Well-Tempered Sentence is engaging, original and useful, much like Gordon’s other books. She also is the author of the grammar handbook The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, The Disheveled Dictionary: A Curious Caper Through Our Sumptuous Lexicon and Intimate Apparel: A Dictionary of the Senses. All of her books are immediately recognizable for the gothic woodcut illustrations on the cover and throughout the text. (If that doesn’t sound familiar, think of the swooning woman on the cover of Bill Walsh’s Lapsing Into a Comma) 

Not everyone can stomach this much Gordon. But, like a rich dessert, she is good in small portions. Having her book on your shelf might ruin your reputation among the writers whose adjectives, adverbs and 50-cent words you regularly cut. Or it might show those who secretly curse you that you have a sweet tooth for language.

 Eric Brosch  is a Master of Professional Writing student at Towson University in Towson, Md.