Lynne Truss

Lynne Truss
2015
Born	(1955-05-31) 31 May 1955 Kingston upon Thames, England
Occupation	Author
Nationality	English
Website
www.lynnetruss.com

Lynne Truss (born 31 May 1955) is an English author, journalist, novelist, and radio broadcaster and dramatist. She is arguably best known for her championing of correctness and aesthetics in the English language, which is the subject of her popular and widely discussed 2003 book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. The book was inspired by a BBC Radio 4 show about punctuation, Cutting a Dash, which she presented.

Besides her promotion of linguistic prescription and commentary on English grammar, Truss has written many radio plays, both comedic and dramatic. She has also written novels, and grammar guides for children.

Early life

Lynne Truss was born on 31 May 1955 in Kingston upon Thames. She was educated at the Tiffin Girls' School and University College London, where she was awarded a first class degree in English Language and Literature.

Career

Truss began her media career as a literary editor. She then spent six years as a television critic for The Times, before moving into sports journalism for the same newspaper. She spent four years in the latter field, and in 2009 wrote a book about her experiences with it, Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life.

Politics

In August 2014, Truss was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Man That Got Away: A Constable Twitten Mystery (2019) ISBN 978-1-6355-7073-1
• A Shot in the Dark – Raven Books (2018) ISBN 978-1-4088-9051-6
• The Lunar Cats (2017) ISBN 978-1-7847-5688-8
• Cat Out of Hell – Hammer (2014) ISBN 978-0-09-958534-3
• Going Loco – Review (Hodder Headline) (1999) ISBN 0-7472-5965-8; Profile Books (2004) ISBN 1-86197-733-6
• Tennyson's Gift – Hamish Hamilton (1996) ISBN 0-241-13521-4; Penguin (1997) ISBN 0-14-024671-1; Profile Books (2004) ISBN 1-86197-733-6
• With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed – Hamish Hamilton (1994) ISBN 978-0-241-13410-8; Penguin (1995) ISBN 0-14-017938-0; Profile Books (2004) ISBN 1-86197-749-2

Non-fiction

• Get Her Off the Pitch: How Sport Took Over My Life (2009)
• Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (2005)
• Glued to the Goggle Box: 50 Years of British TV with Freeze-Frames (2003) – with John Minnion
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (2003)
• Tennyson and his Circle (1999)
• Making the Cat Laugh: One Woman's Journal of Single Life on the Margins (1995)

Children's books

• Twenty-Odd Ducks: Why, Every Punctuation Mark Counts (2008)
• The Girl's Like Spaghetti: Why, You Can't Manage Without Apostrophes! (2007)

Collections and published scripts

• Giving Up the Ghost – BBC Radio 4 (2008)
• A Certain Age: Twelve Monologues From the Classic Radio Series – Profile Books (2007) ISBN 1-86197-879-0

Selected radio series

• Acropolis Now – set in Ancient Greece
• Inspector Steine – set in a 1950s English police station
• Gossip from the Garden Pond
• Rumblings from the Rafters
• A Certain Age (BBC Audio Collection, two vols.) – BBC Audiobooks (2005, 2007) ISBN 0-563-51052-8, ISBN 1-4056-7687-6

This list excludes standalone plays.

External links

• Official website
• "A Certain Age: The Radio Monologues". Episode Guides. Radio show. 2006.