Language History

Master the evolution of software engineering as you explore tech history from raw machine code to AI ecosystems. Perfect for your morning commute or focused deep work, this captivating narrative tracks the brilliant pioneers who transformed human logic into the digital frameworks powering our...

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER ‘One for Philip Pullman fans’ THE TIMES ‘This one is an automatic buy’ GLAMOUR ‘Ambitious, sweeping and epic’ EVENING STANDARD ‘Razor-sharp’ DAILY MAIL ‘An ingenious fantasy about empire’ GUARDIAN 'Literary super-stardom doesn't seem...

The prestigious annual anthology features prize-winning stories by an international array of talented writers, including Weike Wang, Colm Tóibín, Louise Erdrich, Samanta Schweblin, Jenny Xie, Kevin Wilson, Brandon Taylor, and Catherine Lacey. Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge...

In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.

Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious. In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton University, Toni...

Roughly half the world's population speaks languages derived from a shared linguistic source known as Proto-Indo-European. But who were the early speakers of this ancient mother tongue, and how did they manage to spread it around the globe? The Horse, the Wheel, and Language solves a puzzle that has vexed scholars for two centuries and recovers a magnificent and influential civilization from the past. 

From the coauthor of Algorithms to Live By, an exploration of the quest to use mathematics to describe the ways we think, from its origins three hundred years ago to the ideas behind modern AI systems and the ways in which they still differ from human minds. Everyone has a basic understanding of...

Unlock the cosmos with a sweeping popular science history that turns abstract numbers into a thrilling human adventure. Perfect for your daily commute, this thought-provoking journey reveals how our urgent ancient need to trade, navigate, and survive sparked the evolution of algebra, calculus...

Half of all 7,000-plus human languages may disappear over the next century, and when they're gone, it will be forever. Ross Perlin, a linguist and codirector of the Manhattan-based non-profit Endangered Language Alliance, is racing against time to map little-known languages across the most linguistically diverse city in history: contemporary New York.

Over 330,000 copies sold. This is the story of the church for today's listeners. Bruce Shelley's classic history of the church brings the story of global Christianity into the twenty-first century. Like a skilled screenwriter, Shelley begins each chapter with three elements: characters, setting...

Brought to you by Penguin. A riveting, masterfully researched account of the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to the modern world, transforming China into a super-power in the process What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language? China today is one of the...

Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator. 

When conflicts become entrenched over generations, the language of war infiltrates everyday life, concealing destruction and hardening positions. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East. Award-winning author Raja Shehadeh explores the politics of language and the language of politics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, reflecting on the walls that they create - legal and cultural - that confine today's Palestinians just like the borders, checkpoints and so-called "Separation Barrier".

In this extraordinary book, an award-winning author tells the story of how humans invented history, from the Stone Age to the Virtual Age “Terrific… Tamim Ansary explores the underappreciated ways that empires, nations, and smaller sets of people have responded to their surroundings...

Every skeleton has a story to tell. Mortician and pathology curator Carla Valentine knows this better than anyone. As the curator of a pathology museum housing more than 5,000 human specimens, many of them bones and skeletons, she spends her days uncovering the secrets they hold. In this...

Brought to you by Penguin. Adapted from Mother Tongue this stunningly illustrated book by Bill Bryson tells the story of English, from the first words ever spoken to the very first dictionaries. Perfect for ages 8 to 80! Every day, you do something incredible, and I bet you barely ever think...

*A New Statesman Best Summer Read* 'A book to underline endlessly, to carry around until battered, and then to tell all your friends to buy because you're too reluctant to give up your own copy. A wonder’ Polly Barton 'Brings a welcome freshness of vision and a dashing style … provocative...

29 personal essays exploring mixed identity, belonging, family, racism, community and the paradoxical ways of being in the world “An unprecedented ode to the wide range of mixed-root experiences and what is shared across difference. Required reading for anyone who has ever been asked what are...

Discover the sweeping history of linguistics and human evolution, tracing our journey from ancient grunts to modern AI. Perfect for an educational daily commute, this thought-provoking deep dive reveals how shared sounds transformed into world-building power. Language is not merely a tool for...

GOLD WINNER OF 'BEST NARRATOR' AT THE AUDIO PRODUCTION AWARDS. 'This guy has better Punjabi than both of us and he's only half Punjabi.' Only. Half. I stared at those words. The intent behind the comment was in no way malicious, but it hurt. I felt diminished. I felt like I was being robbed of...