The beauty of the ampersand and other keyboard symbols

This is such a great idea: a book with one short essay per punctuation mark or typographical symbol. Of course, our commas, ampersands and exclamation marks all come from somewhere; all were invented at some point or another and their stories are ever-changing. Computer coders, for example, have recently moved previously unsung but elegant marks such as the hashtag and the ‘at’ sign back to centre stage.

Claire Cock-Starkey is a confident and likeable host and makes a witty crack about her own surname in her essay on the hyphen. She somehow elevates what could have been a nerdy primer into something grander, and at various moments the book becomes meditative, poetic, philosophical and funny, as well as scholarly.

There is much to enjoy. The strangely named and beautifully shaped ampersand, we’re told, evolved from the Latin ‘et’.