Sam Leith

I have finished "Write to the Point" by Sam Leith and I have given it a five star rating. I would never have thought I would enjoy reading a book about grammar and punctuation so much. He tried to strike an informal conversational style and he succeeded. Well worth a read for English language writers on either side of the Atlantic. Leith deals with usages from both sides without prejudice or malice. :-)

full of attempts at funny incongruities and interesting characters, this book ended up just being not quite finished. at least, it felt that way. or, rather, it felt finished in a manner that didn’t really wrap anything up but was obviously intended to leave us open to possibilities.

it rambled and wandered and never seemed to get its feet under it. it’s not badly written (there’s not much of a plot but, ironically, i don’t think there was supposed to be) but it just didn’t smack show more home for me. i’ve read lots of science fiction and fantasy and couldn’t get past the unoriginality of it. that is, i’ve seen these story elements before elsewhere. in fact, other reviewers have remarked that it’s a bit like Douglas Adams lite. i only see Adams in the core concept of the “coincidence engine” itself which is a near exact copy of Adams’s infinite improbability drive. but it’s made into a ring. huh. where did that come from?

i also got hints of John Dies at the End and even the Illuminatus! Trilogy. Leith attempts this and has fun with it but it just didn’t rise above basking in homage to become something itself. show less

The book begins by discussing a plane that apparently assembled itself during a hurricane, seemingly from random nearby items, and then crash-landed and disappeared. A secret government agency is looking into the appear- & disappearance of this aircraft that should never have existed. Add in a clueless British dude named Alex, some goons of low intelligence capable of murder, and some members of a top-secret government organization so obscure its' own members aren't even sure of what they're show more investigating, all on a road trip across the landscape of America -- it sounds fun & zany, right?

Well... not exactly.

This book is not as humorous as I was expecting -- it was, instead, more philosophical. It had a lot of mathematical discussion, and also brought in some physics, some ethical conundrums, etc. It was far, far more serious than I was expecting, yet well written so that I, as someone who mainly avoided math & physics classes when at all humanly possible, could still comprehend it. My brain was not straining to comprehend the subject matter to a degree that took my focus away from the story, either.

Overall, I would say that this story is worth reading, provided that you know what you're getting before delving into its' pages. show less

Was searching for Leith's new book on rhetoric [b:You Talkin' To Me?|12652892|You Talkin' To Me?|Sam Leith|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nocover-60x80.jpg|17766620] in the Overdrive catalog, and came across this instead. A zippy read, lots of fun, sort of about probability and quantum stuff but really about some strange characters wandering around the US. An Englishman's view of driving in America. Watch out for the Elvis impersonators!

It's true that it suffers a bit from a "hey I bet I show more can write like [ai:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]" syndrome, but, well, he comes pretty close. show less