The Lynne Truss Treasury: Columns and Three Comic Novels

New York: Gotham, 2005-06-23. Trade Paperback. Good. 9x6x1. No Stock Photos! We photograph every item. light edge wear, some foxing; Lynne Truss debuted in America as a guffaw-inducing grammarian, but her British audience has known her for years as a critically acclaimed novelist and columnist. Her previous works are now available stateside in one volume, complete with a new preface. "With One Lousy Free Packet of Seed," a raucous comedy of errors, follows the exploits of Osborne Lonsdale, who writes a weekly column called "Me and My Shed" for a floundering gardening magazine. When the publication is taken over by a gung-ho management team, Lonsdale must learn to cope with his new coworkers. In "Tennyson's Gift" and "Going Loco," Truss turns a fiendishly clever eye to the literary world. "Tennyson's Gift" is an imaginative cocktail of Victorian seriousness and farce that re-imagines the world of the nineteenth-century English poet laureate, placing him in the midst of eccentric company that includes dodgy Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll). "Going Loco" features a critic trying to write a definitive account of the doppelgAnger in gothic fiction, amidst the chaos of her domestic life, including paranoia that her cleaning lady is taking over her life. "Making the Cat Laugh" is a riotous collection of columns about single life. Truss comments on dating, secondhand smoking, shopping, holidays, and people who ask, "How's the novel going?" All the while, she continues an eighteen-year quest to make her cat laugh. Reportedly, the feline remains unimpressed.