I read this with an eye to thinking about the World Lit class I'm teaching in the fall, that this might help me reflect some on experiences that are not English or Western, even. And this was mostly successful at that. It wrongfooted me a little-- the first chapter really did break down Vietnamese, the first of 20 languages that Dorren tackles-- because later chapters are more topical than that, so that the chapter on Portuguese is more broadly about colonialism than it is about Portuguese. This is the pattern of most chapters-- the languages display an interesting feature or history or orthography that tees up something Dorren wants to talk about for a dozen or twenty pages. This doesn't make it less than interesting, and you really can't do much with a language in that small a space. And most of the chapters and topics were interesting and well-developed.

This series of short essays means that the book lacks a clear propulsive spine, though. This is better a book beside the bed to read before bed than something you'd tear through on a train.