If you want a Valentine's Day present for the language lover in your life, we have the book for you. 

It's actually the third volume in a trilogy--the first two books are a history of the English language and English spelling. This one sounds dull. What could be interesting about punctuation? But David Crystal has a thousand stories, highlighting the quirks and quarrels, skirmishes and pitched battles in the history of English punctuation.

For example, did you know there was an Apostophe Protection Society? Perhaps that's because people like George Bernard Shaw wrote things like, "There is not the faintest reason for persisting in the ugly and silly trick of peppering pages with these uncouth bacilli." And when our own Mark Twain heard that a proofreader was enhancing his punctuation he "telegraphed orders to have him shot without giving him time to pray."

Here is a great book review--almost as entertaining as the book!