The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language

At first, I thought that this book would appeal mostly to language geeks, the kind of people who speak 11 languages, and are working on number 12. Fortunately, I decided to give it a chance, even though I'm not at all that sort of person. The appeal of this book is much, much wider than just polyglots and linguists. If you're interested in nonsense in the style of Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear, you should read this book. If you're interested in wordplay, you should read this book. If you're interested in the inner workings of interactive fiction, text adventure, and mud parsers, you should read this book. If you're a wannabe writer or speaker, you should read this book. If, like me, you're interested in all of the above, you'll probably be reading this book a second time at some point in the future.