Ahoy there me mateys!  I received this non-fiction eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  So here be me honest musings . . .

Even though English is the "world language," the fact of the matter is that most of the world doesn't speak it.  This book explores the idea that to speak fluently with half of the people in the world, ye would need to speak 20 languages.  This book set out to explore those 20.

The concept of this book be fascinating.  The execution was sadly not to me taste.  Part of the problem is that the book didn't feel like a cohesive whole.  The chapters varied in style and focus.  There were often long tangents, that while interesting, made following the arguments being made difficult.  Other parts went into details of linguistics which were frankly over me head.  In addition, the review copy that I received was missing dates and figures.

I do believe that the author was enthusiastic and I did find many of the facts, like the formation of Turkish, to be amazing.  I so wanted to love this book but the presentation was muddled.  It was irksome and so I only read up to 54%.  Other readers may find this style worthwhile so I hesitate to condemn the book altogether.  I do hope this book finds its proper audience.  I am just not it.

So lastly . . .

Thank you Grove Atlantic!

Side note: from Amazon - "Gaston Dorren is a linguist, journalist, and polyglot. He speaks Dutch, Limburgish, English, German, French, and Spanish, and reads nine more languages."  How awesome is that?

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