Given my ongoing fascination with language and linguistics, when I saw Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct in our campus bookshop I couldn't resist the temptation to buy it. It was truly an excellent purchase.

Pinker provides a eloquent, factual, well-researched and above all interesting overview of the current state of linguistics. He covers the full spectrum of topics, from universal grammar (a la Chomsky), phonetics and mental dictionaries to how we (particularly as children) learn language to how different languages developed to how the human brain handles language, and how this could have evolved.

This book was absolutely fascinating, and I have no doubt that anyone interesting in how and why language works would enjoy it immensely.