Recommended Read Wolf, Maryanne. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. New York: Harper Perennial, 2007. [ISBN-13: 978-0-06-093384-5] The argument that grounds Proust and the Squid is that the human mind isn’t hardwired for reading the way it is for speech. While the average child left in earshot of others’ speech […]

Recommended Read Abley, Mark. The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English. Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008. [ISBN-13: 978-0-679-31366-3] Take a moment to be astonished at how much English has changed in the 600-odd years since Langland wrote Peirs Plowman: In a somer sesun, whon softe was the sonne, I schop me into a shroud, as […]