Obviously I'm starting this a bit late - I already have a backlog of about 50 books to add. I'm aiming to read 300 books this year so I'm pretty much on track.
Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language
by Patricia O'Conner & Stewart Kellerman was my first book for the year. I read this on Kindle for iPhone so guess it wasn't really a book at all. I also started it in 2009, but was reading it as the New Year started and finished it on New Year's Day. As no doubt you'll be able to tell soon, I love books about the English Language and its origins - I even like reading dictionaries, though I don't often read them from cover to cover.One of the things I found fascinating about this particular book is the the fact that it looks at both English and American English usage. As an Australian I felt like I was suspended somewhere in the middle: some of the American words I knew only from American tv and books, ditto for the English words, some of the words from each country are in common use in Australia, and sometimes we use both (like rubber & eraser). Pronunciation is the same - we pronounce some words as the English do, some like Americans - for example we say "herb" not "erb" for the flavourful additive to recipes. Our spelling definitely follows the English, although oddly the Australian Labor party uses the American spelling of labour.
The historical examination of words is also interesting - some of the American usages have an older history than their English counterparts, because they originated before the American Revolution when the 18th Century British were still in America.
In all, a fascinating book, with such a good list of resources at the end that I simply didn't know where to start!
