The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

Bill Bryson's The Mother Tongue is a cheerful and light-hearted review of the English language. Bryson's analysis is extremely cursory — I am sure more knowledgeable linguists will find much of it inaccurate or at least incomplete — and at times it becomes just a litany of facts and anecdotes. But like most of Bryson’s books it’s a pleasurable read.