Bill Bryson: Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language [2009] paperback Condition:Good *** Granta Best of Young

*** Granta Best of Young American Novelists 2017 ***

Irresistibly drawn towards a group of demon hunters

writer and music historian Marc Myers tells the stories behind fifty-five more rock

he's disappointed but not exactly surprised to find that he's facing down a dragon

with a sharp focus on sexual politics

Bill Bryson: Mother Tongue: The Story of the English Language [2009] paperback Condition:Good *** Granta Best of Young'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to' Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling