The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

If you enjoy the writings of Bill Bryson, as I do, or the quirks of the English language you will enjoy this book. English has become and amazingly universal language. Bryson tells of Volkswagen, a German company, that communicates with its workers in China in English. He relates walking through an airport in Belgium, which has not one but two official languages, and seeing the advertising posters in English. He then dives back into the history of the strange language and looks at where it came from and what features of English may have prepared it for its current role. This is a book that will enlighten as well as entertain.