The Good the Bad and the Ugly of the English Language
1. 
The Story of English: Companion to the PBS TV Series
by:
Robert McCrum
4.09 avg rating — 2,388 ratings 2. 
3. 
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by:
Lynne Truss
3.87 avg rating — 106,069 ratings 4. 
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
by:
Simon Winchester
3.84 avg rating — 120,606 ratings 5. 
The Fight for English: How Language Pundits Ate, Shot, and Left
by:
David Crystal
3.91 avg rating — 307 ratings 6. 
The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language
by:
John McWhorter
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 3,186 ratings 7. 
The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language
by:
Melvyn Bragg
3.94 avg rating — 5,091 ratings 8. 
I Love it When You Talk Retro: Hoochie Coochie, Double Whammy, Drop a Dime, and the Forgotten Origins of American Speech
by:
Ralph Keyes
3.47 avg rating — 285 ratings 
10. 
Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling
by:
David Crystal
3.95 avg rating — 883 ratings 11. 
The Deeper Meaning of Liff: A Dictionary of Things There Aren't Any Words for Yet--But There Ought to Be
by:
Douglas Adams
3.94 avg rating — 4,794 ratings 12. 
Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States
by:
Bill Bryson
3.92 avg rating — 15,801 ratings 
14. 
15. 
The Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll through the Hidden Connections of the English Language
by:
Mark Forsyth
4.23 avg rating — 12,065 ratings 16. 
17. 
Words on the Move: Why English Won't—and Can't—Sit Still
by:
John McWhorter
4.14 avg rating — 1,919 ratings 19. 
The Revenge of Anguished English: More Accidental Assaults Upon Our Language
by:
Richard Lederer
3.88 avg rating — 134 ratings 
22. 
The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More Than Some Antics
by:
John Pollack
3.68 avg rating — 1,893 ratings 24. 
They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases
by:
Howard Rheingold
3.86 avg rating — 317 ratings 24. 
Word Court: Wherein Verbal Virtue Is Rewarded, Crimes Against the Language Are Punished, and Poetic Justice Is Done
by:
Barbara Wallraff
3.72 avg rating — 96 ratings 
27. 
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29. 
Swearing Is Good for You: The Amazing Science of Bad Language
by:
Emma Byrne
3.48 avg rating — 2,011 ratings 29. 
Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-Language Tourist's Guide to Britain
by:
David Crystal
3.56 avg rating — 93 ratings 
34. 
36. 
Accidence Will Happen: A Recovering Pedant's Guide to English Language and Style
by:
Oliver Kamm
3.66 avg rating — 189 ratings 37. 
Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language
by:
Robert McCrum
3.27 avg rating — 615 ratings 38. 
Begat: The King James Bible and the English Language
by:
David Crystal
3.29 avg rating — 143 ratings 39. 
Making a Point: The Pernickety Story of English Punctuation
by:
David Crystal
3.95 avg rating — 290 ratings 40. 
Forgotten English: A Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Facts, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings
by:
Jeffrey Kacirk
3.70 avg rating — 213 ratings 41. 
Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme and Other Oddities of the English Language
by:
Arika Okrent
4.12 avg rating — 562 ratings 42. 
The Last Word: The English Language: Opinions and Prejudices
by:
Laurence Urdang
4.20 avg rating — 5 ratings 42. 
The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed 4.14 avg rating — 823 ratings
42. 
A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi: Words We Pinched From Other Languages
by:
Chloe Rhodes
3.59 avg rating — 253 ratings 42. 
Xenia: A Hoard of Lost Words, Eighteenth-Century Street Lingo, and a Few Completely Confabulated Terms Collected and Exemplified
by:
Coleman Barks
it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings 47. 
The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammar for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed 4.10 avg rating — 1,534 ratings
47. 
You've Got Ketchup on Your Muumuu: An A--to--Z Guide to English Words from Around the World
by:
Eugene Ehrlich
really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 6 ratings 
49. 
Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary 4.08 avg rating — 182 ratings
54. 
Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words: A Writer's Guide to Getting It Right
by:
Bill Bryson
3.89 avg rating — 3,201 ratings 
57. 
The Word Museum: The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten
by:
Jeffrey Kacirk
3.87 avg rating — 254 ratings 
58. 
The Word Detective: Searching for the Meaning of It All at the Oxford English Dictionary
by:
John Simpson
3.84 avg rating — 468 ratings 
61. 
Engleish, our Engleish: Common errors in South African English and how to resolve them
by:
John Linnegar
4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings 
65. 
Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English 3.94 avg rating — 4,498 ratings
65. 
How to Speak Brit: The Quintessential Guide to the King's English, Cockney Slang, and Other Flummoxing British Phrases
by:
C.J. Moore
3.48 avg rating — 376 ratings 
69. 
Mind the Gaffe: The Penguin Guide to Common Errors in English
by:
R.L. Trask
3.89 avg rating — 89 ratings 69. 
Eish, but is it English?: Celebrating the South African variety
by:
Jeanne Hromnik
3.38 avg rating — 16 ratings 69. 
Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Dictionary: Words You Thought You Knew the Meaning Of
by:
Jeff Foxworthy
3.68 avg rating — 316 ratings 73. 
Lexicon: American Style 2: Exercising Our English Language, Our 'Flexicon'
by:
Patrick Ragains
4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings 
75. 
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
by:
Benjamin Dreyer
4.34 avg rating — 9,243 ratings 75. 
The Dixie Dictionary: Your Complete Guide to the Southern Language
by:
howard-thomas-w
3.64 avg rating — 11 ratings 77. 
77. 
Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language
by:
Amanda Montell
4.24 avg rating — 25,825 ratings 80. 
The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt Through the Lost Words of the English Language
by:
Mark Forsyth
3.95 avg rating — 2,506 ratings 
82. 
Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players
by:
Stefan Fatsis
3.82 avg rating — 5,577 ratings 82. 
Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language 3.81 avg rating — 619 ratings
84. 
Workman Publishing Everything You Need to Ace English Language Arts in One Big Fat Notebook (Big Fat Notebooks)
by:
Jen Haberling
4.45 avg rating — 692 ratings 86. 
88. 
Dictionary of Word Origins: Histories of More Than 8,000 English-Language Words
by:
John Ayto
4.01 avg rating — 236 ratings 89. 
The Dictionary Wars: The American Fight over the English Language
by:
Peter Martin
3.46 avg rating — 164 ratings 
91. 
GET THEE TO A PUNNERY: An Anthology of International Assaults Upon The English Language
by:
Richard Lederer
3.75 avg rating — 317 ratings 
93. 
Around the World in 80 Words: A Journey Through the English Language 3.89 avg rating — 222 ratings
94. 
Wretched Writing: A Compendium of Crimes Against the English Language
by:
Kathryn Petras
3.20 avg rating — 185 ratings