The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way by Bill Bryson [Steeple] - 3 stars

[Jen]

It's strange how a book can be both interesting and dull at the same time; listening to this one through audiobook managed it, and I think it's due to how often long patches of the book dealt with the speaker spelling out words. It was, at times, a bit like having the National Spelling Bee on in the background--if I wasn't actively doing something else, it wasn't long before the rhythm of the speaking voice spelling out random words had my eyes drooping sleepily. As a result, I found that I had to either backtrack and relisten, or just shrug and move on--I have no doubt there are whole sections that I listened to but never actually heard.

On the flip side, though, I don't know that reading the book in its entire would have been much better because there are definitely long stretches in which the point being made had to do with the pronunciation of words vs. how they were spelled, so having the audio component was beneficial. As an avid reader and someone who enjoys wordplay and language, this was a nice "dip in" book to listen to during commute time or house chores, but it's not for everyone.