With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson—the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent—brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants

...

"An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language--and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women's bodies, experiences, and sexuality. So many of the words that we use to chronicle women's lives feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for women's...

"Your Future Is Bright! After all, your mother is a robot, your father has joined the alien hive mind, and your dinner will be counterfeit 3D-printed steak. Even though your worker bots have staged a mutiny, and your tour guide speaks only in memes, you can always sell your native language if you need some extra cash." --

A librarian helps a desperate student find the door into a book; Sir Thomas Moore's head is stolen and a messy rescue ensues; a mother sells a piece of her memory so her daughter can afford an education. Science fiction is the story of what if and what comes next. It's more playful, more inclusive and more entertaining than it has ever been before and as the world falls apart around us, it offers us a chance to understand how things could be better,...

An anthology representing more than two hundred years of African American creative poetic endeavors features the work of fifty-two poets.

Across a turbulent history, Black poets created a rich and multifaceted tradition that has been both a reckoning with American realities and an imaginative response to them. One of the great American art forms, African American poetry encompasses many kinds of verse: formal, experimental, vernacular, lyric, and protest. The anthology opens with moving testaments to the power of poetry as a means of self-assertion, as enslaved people voice their passionate...