Books like The Atoms Of Language — picked by fans

I was captivated by the first chapter of this book, which summarises the case for considering language to be a human instinct. I love the way that it deploys rational thought and evidence in pursuit of intriguing 'grand theorizing'. It's a compelling read and expertly constructed introduction to the psychology (and sociology) of language. It is also a case study in how to build arguments.

The diminishing role of rational thought and evidence-based argument in the wider political sphere is one of the greatest threats to our world. So, when we read books like this, we are not simply making a personal decision. We are also making a political statement about the kind of world we want to live in.

Any book on language by John McWhorter is a worthwhile read, but this one, I think, is his all-time best! Who knew that a book that starts with a discussion of verb conjugation in Persian can be a page-turner, right?

I was struck by McWhorter’s appreciation for what lesser-known languages, like Ket in Siberia or Twi in Ghana, show us about how the human mind works. But the most mind-blowing thing about this book, in my opinion, is how well McWhorter succeeds in describing how complex every human idiom is in a way that is clear and engaging without being lost in the disheveled intricacies of Fongbe or Navajo. 

I couldn’t put down this book from the very first pages that tell the story of Monsieur Leborgne and how Doctor Broca, who treated him, made the vital linguistic discovery that immortalized his name.

I learned that some groundbreaking linguistic discoveries are still made in hospitals, but one no longer needs to have a brain injury to be of interest to neurolinguistic science.

I also loved discovering how clever experiments are designed and how MRI gives us a window into how language works in the brain in real-time. 

A whirlwind tour of what state-of-the-art linguistic science has to offer! 

Even after 25 years of working in the field, I discovered fascinating new insights, ranging from how deaf children acquire sign languages to experimental efforts teaching human language to apes.

But what was especially fun for me was a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how Adger designed an alien language for a TV show. It truly inspired me to reflect on how I would have done it differently and how our personal experiences shape our work as scientists.

Any book on language by John McWhorter is worth reading, but this particular one has become my new favorite! 

I found it absolutely unputdownable and, at times, hilarious. McWhorter takes a very refreshing and entertaining approach to language evolution by uncovering the hidden, constantly changing history of words, grammar, and sounds.

I was especially awed by McWhorter’s choices of fun examples, well explained. Most impressive, however, is how effortlessly he explains complex concepts like semantic drift and vowel shifts, making them perfectly clear to readers with absolutely no background in linguistics.

While linguistics often seems highly theoretical or academic, David Crystal beautifully demonstrates one of its practical, real-world applications.

The book vividly transported me to London’s Globe Theatre, where a dedicated group of theatre and linguistics enthusiasts recreated the original pronunciation of the Bard's plays. I loved learning that the English spoken by Queen Elizabeth II sounds nothing like the language used during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

What I found most compelling is Crystal’s explanation of how reversing four centuries of language evolution can reveal hidden meanings—and comedic jokes—that Shakespeare originally intended for his audience.

I was stopped in my tracks by the unique approach that Moro takes: instead of the usual discussion of this or that language that actually exists, Moro examines what NEVER happens in human languages and what those boundaries can teach us.

I was mesmerized by how skillfully he bridges neuroscience and philosophy of language. The book pushed me to ask questions I had never considered before and forced me to challenge my own assumptions about what I thought I knew. 

Attenborough’s books describing his early travels while making various Zoo Quest films in the 1950s and early 1960s were republished in 2018 and it is a delight to re-read about the many challenges he faced to secure footage of enormously rare animals, especially as his tales are all delivered with brilliant British understatement. Attenborough has an acute eye for wildlife as well as a talent for communicating the atmosphere of a place and sympathy with the people he meets and charms. His films and his writing including on the lemurs of Madagascar had me dreaming of my own expeditions and adventures, and which ultimately I was lucky enough to make real.

What a thoughtful, mysterious, magical, dark, and satisfying book. A great mix of history and travel memoir. Ecott details the deep myths circulating around vanilla and orchids in general over the past few centuries. He performed amazing on-the-ground research on the island of Reunion (off the coast of Madagascar), piecing together the real history of the first person to hand-pollinate the vanilla orchid, an enslaved boy named Edmund Albius. I found his story both soul-wrenching and an index to the possible lives of enslaved people we have no record of.

What if you got hit by lightning? What if the lightning came from inside your body? What if you are such an obsessive writer and researcher that you then had to trace the supply chain of the failed medical device that did that to you?

KS does body writing as a research quest, taking her battered heart back and forth across the Atlantic in pursuit of answers to the question of what, exactly, she’d been carrying around in it. The sense of vulnerability—medical, economic, and otherwise—that she creates within the narrative is so felt that I couldn’t shake it when I was done reading.