Bryson Bill. The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

BBC Audiobooks, 2004.
Who would have thought that a book about English would be so entertaining? Bill Bryson--a zealot--is the right man for the job. It is his unflagging enthusiasm, seeping from between every sentence, that carries the book.
Bryson displays an encyclopedic knowledge of his topic, and this inevitably encourages a light tone; the more you know about a subject, the more absurd it becomes. No jokes are necessary, the facts do well enough by themselves, and Bryson supplies tens per page. Not only does this give a laugh (one word: Welsh), and always shed considerable light, it also makes the reader feel fortunate to speak English.