Bård Borch Michalsen's guest appearances

Bård Borch Michalsen

HodderPod - Hodder books podcast

Chris Ryan

Shea Serrano

Joyce Meyer

Andrew Peterson

Siri Hustvedt

Anita Moorjani

Arianna Huffington

Laura Vanderkam

Ijeoma Oluo

David Burkus

Ethan Hawke

Ryan Serhant

Rob Bell

Kristin Neff

David Perlmutter

OwlTail

David Timson

'Punctuation is not only an important part of our language code; an advanced system of punctuation has been a driving force in our entire Western Civilisation. Nothing less.'With the invention of printing, reading books moved from being an act only performed by priests and aristocrats into an individual, even private, activity. This change helped spark the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution - in which punctuation played a crucial role. As long as texts were read out loud only by an educated elite there was no need for punctuation to mark pauses, full stops or questions.So punctuation - the full stop, the comma, the exclamation mark, the question mark and the semicolon - helped shape modern-day Europe as we know it.

'Punctuation is not only an important part of our language code; an advanced system of punctuation has been a driving force in our entire Western Civilisation. Nothing less.'<br><br>With the invention of printing, reading books moved from being an act only performed by priests and aristocrats into an individual, even private, activity. This change helped spark the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution - in which punctuation played a crucial role. As long as texts were read out loud only by an educated elite there was no need for punctuation to mark pauses, full stops or questions.<br><br>So punctuation - the full stop, the comma, the exclamation mark, the question mark and the semicolon - helped shape modern-day Europe as we know it.

SIGNS OF CIVILISATION, by Bård Borch Michalsen, read by David Timson - Audiobook extract