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This week’s question asks:

In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?

More importantly, have you read them?

How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?

Because I used to be a copyeditor and proofreader, so I had many writing style and grammar books. There are three guides that I still have -- The Elements of Style by Strunk and White (both the regular and illustrated edition) and The Chicago Manual of Style.

When I write formal proposals and business correspondence, I am fussy about writng, style, and punctuation. Personal writing (like this) -- not so much!

My favorite punctuation is the em dash! I find it hard to use sometimes when typing on the computer -- easier to use two hypens.

I love receiving ARCs to see how much red pen I can use! Interesting enough, some publishers are better at editing that others. Some ARCs turned out very "bloody!"

What do you say about writing style, grammar, and punctuation? With all the texting going on, does it matter anymore?

(Remember -- this is personal writing. No lectures, please!)

Teaser Tuesdays (Hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading) is here again. I'm still reading Angelology and used the title last week. I loving it! So, I will grap some some lines from one of the books I received yesterday.

"It was a brisk autumn day and the platform was blustery. Louisa felt the skirts of her slim black dress swirl around the ankle boots, the pair she'd had for years, the pair she'd worn in Rome in the cathedrals, in Nice, in the parlor of the Paris inn where she'd shared wine with a Polish revolutionary as he described the deaths of all his friends.'' -- The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees, April 2010

Deftly mixing fact and fiction, Kelly O'Connor McNees imagines a love affair that would threaten Louisa's writing career-and inspire the story of Jo and Laurie in Little Women. Stuck in small-town New Hampshire in 1855, Louisa finds herself torn between a love that takes her by surprise and her dream of independence as a writer in Boston. The choice she must make comes with a steep price that she will pay for the rest of her life. -- publisher description

Love Little Women and A Long Fatal Love Chase. can't wait to read about Louisa!

What's your TT?

Booking Through Thursday is hosted by http://btt2.wordpress.com/

This week's question, suggested by Janet, asks:

"I’ve seen this quotation in several places lately. It’s from Sven Birkerts’ ‘The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age’:

'To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or one’s orientation toward it.'
To what extent does this describe you?"

Interesting question, Janet! My life has been happy and fufilling, so far. Though, like everyone, I have ups and downs-- "life" must go on! I agree with the "movement" aspect -- an mind and soul journey -- of Birkerts' quote concerning but totally disagree with the "insufficiency' statement.

Reading is a passionate part of my life--celebrating learning, imagination, understanding other cultures and ideas, the incredible art of writing (which I don't have) and, of course, fun and escape! I work in the book biz --translating my fascination of books and reading to my career. Got to love that!

The reading "motion' or journey gives me a chance to find out that everyone has an incredible story. Learn it and be amazed! If I can hear, imagine, believe, understand someone else's story, my life is enriched. No insufficiency, here!

Do you agree with Sven Birkerts’ idea? What does it say about reading groups and book clubs? 

Have been waiting for this ARC to come -- have heard lots of good things about Angelology by Danielle Trussoni! I read her memoir, Falling Through the Earth, four years ago -- excellent!

I will start this book tonight so I will grab the first paragraph (I was going to do the first two sentences but wow -- I have to finish the paragraph!) Angelology released on March 9.

Devil's Throat Cavern, Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria

Winter 1943

The angelolists examined the body. It was intact, without decay, the skin as smooth and white as parchment. The lifeless aquamarine eyes gazed heavenward. Pale curls fell against a high forehead and sculptural shoulders, forming a halo of golden hair. Even the robes -- the cloth woven of a white shimmering metallic material that none of them could identify exactly -- remained pristine, as if the creature had died in a hospital room in Paris and not a cavern deep below the earth.

Awesome!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

What's your TT?