An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark!

Today's nonfiction post is on An Admirable Point: A Brief History of the Exclamation Mark! by Florence Hazrat. It is 176 pages long and is published by David R. Godine, Publisher. The cover is bright yellow with a purple exclamation mark in the center and the title on either side. The intended reader is someone who is interested in the history of punctuation. There is no foul language, no sex, and no violence in this book. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the dust jacket- The history of the both loved and hated punctuation mark—from Beowulf to spam emails, ee cummings to neuroscience.
Few punctuation marks elicit quite as much love or hate as the exclamation mark. It's bubbly and exuberant, an emotional amplifier whose flamboyantly dramatic gesture lets the reader here be feelings! Scott Fitzgerald famously stated exclamation marks are like laughing at your own joke; Terry Pratchett had a character say that multiple !!! are a 'sure sign of a diseased mind'. So what's the deal with ! ?
An Admirable Point recuperates the exclamation mark from its much maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy. It explores how ! came about in the first place some six hundred years ago, and uncovers the many ways in which ! has left its mark on art, literature, (pop) culture, and just about any sphere of human activity.
Whether you think it's over-used, or enthusiastically sprinkle your writing with it, ! is inescapable.

Review- This is a very fun book about the history of the exclamation mark. The mark has many names from The screamer to the Bang, has the mark jumps out at the reader from the page. The Bang is not as old as most punctuation but it has a more tumultuous history. From being called as unneeded and unwanted to being seen as a rude mark, the Bang has quite a history. The writing is very good with lots of humor about the subject and how passionate people have gotten about a mark on paper, not even the words, just the mark itself. The research is solid with good notes at the back. Hazrat clearly has great love for punctuation and the Bang in particular. I hope that she writes another book because I really enjoyed this one. 

I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.