A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English

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Summary: A Truly Cunning Linguist
Review: Anthony Burgess was, excuse me, I just have to say it, a truly cunning linguist, and wrote many books about the English language, as well as the dialogue for 1 Million B.C. Grunts and snorts, but grunts and snorts researched in chronological retrospect; from his vast knowledge of present-day languages, he traced language backward to its beginning sounds, much like he took modern-day Liverpool slang and projected it into the future for the speech in A Clockwork Orange (his admittedly worst and regrettably best-known book). He read and reviewed dictionaries for the London Times, always finding a lively and humorous way to present his serious content. This same man, as a linguist, produced a lively analysis of language in A Mouthful of Air. For anyone who loves words and language and the way they roll off the tongue, Anthony Burgess is a must

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Summary: great intro to the study of language
Review: This book, an expansion of Burgess' earlier _Language Made Plain_, is a fabulous way to learn how language works -- how we make sounds, how words change through the years, how languages differ from each other. Burgess' book on language is in many ways a curious sort of literary autobiography, as so much of his writing has been wordplay of one sort or another. As always, his writing is lively and lucid.