Many books were considered and read for the 2012 read. Initially a very broad approach is taken in regards to the theme Language: How We Communicate: books about letters, vocabulary, foreign languages, language evolution, etc. The screening committee must constantly judge a book by community appeal, theme appropriateness, accessibility, and the practical issue of price and availability.

Abley, Mark. Spoken Here: Travels Among Threatened Languages. Boston: Mariner Books. 2005. Print.
Journalist Mark Abley travels the world learning about endangered languages and studying the colonizing effects of dominant world languages.
Tags: Endangered languages, politics, travel, globalization

Baron, Naomi S. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Tags: technology, communication, linguistics, English, social media

Bickerton, Derek. Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans. New York: Hill and Wang, 2010. Print.
Bickerton proposes the idea that the development of language is the critical difference between humans and the rest of nature by giving rise to advanced cognitive abilities.
Tags: Psychology, history, human evolution, anthropology

Bickerton, Derek. Bastard Tongues: A Trailblazing Linguist Finds Clues to our Common Humanity in the World's Lowliest Languages. New York: Hill and Wang, 2009. Print.
Bickerton explores the origins and significance of creole languages in this light yet analytic memoir.
Tags: Linguistics, Creole, communication, travel, autobiography

Brooks, Geraldine. March: A Novel. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.
This Pulitzer Price-winning historical novel tells the story of the missing father from Little Women, Mr. March, as he navigates the Civil War and the emotional agony he experiences as a result of his work with former slaves.
Tags: historical fiction, Civil War, Little Women

Bruchac, Joseph. Code Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. Dial Books, 2005. Print.
Tags: Fiction, World War II, history, codes, war

Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue. New York: Avon Books, 1991. Print.
Acclaimed writer Bryson provides an entertaining yet informative account of the evolution of the English language.
Tags: English language, history, humor, British history, American history

Campbell, Gordon. Bible: The Story of the King James Version, 1611-2011. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.
A history of one of the most influential English-language books, from the creation of the Kings James version of the Bible through its many subsequent editions and revisions.
Tags: Religion, Christianity, bible, history

Crystal, David. A Little Book of Language. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Print.
Crystal provides a thorough introduction to language, including language acquisition, slang, and the ways languages are changing most rapidly today.
Tags: linguistics, brain behavior, evolution, history, science

Dai, Sijie, and Ina Rilke. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. Print.
Tags: historical fiction, China, culture, fiction

De Zengotita, Thomas. Mediated: How the Media Shapes Your World and the Way You Live in it. New York: Bloomsbury, 2006. Print.
Tags: media, technology, culture, America, heroism

DeLillo, Don. The Names. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Tags: Greece, travel, languages, mystery

Deutscher, Guy. Through the Language Glass: How Words Colour Your World. London: Arrow, 2011. Print.
Tags: Culture, foreign languages, linguistics, controversial

Deutscher, Guy. The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006. Print.
Tags: Anthropology, language, linguistics, language evolution

Dumas, Firoozeh. Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004. Print.
Tags: Memoir, immigration, family, America, Iran

Dunn, Mark. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters. New York: Anchor Books, 2002. Print.
Tags: fiction, freedom of speech, humor, young adult

Erard, Michael. Um-- Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders, and What They Mean. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007. Print.
Tags: speech, language, linguistics, cognitive science

Falk, Dean. Finding Our Tongues: Mothers, Infants and the Origins of Language. Basic Books, 2009. Print.
Tags: anthropology, linguistics, language

Fallows, Deborah. Dreaming in Chinese: Mandarin Lessons in Life, Love, and Language. New York: Walker & Company, 2011. Print.
Tags: Culture, China, Mandarin, travel, learning a foreign language

Fox, Margalit. Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals about the Mind. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.
Tags: Sign language, Israel, travel, politics, science

Guest, Judith. Ordinary People. New York: Penguin Books, 1982. Print.
Tags: fiction, family, death, suburban life.

Guo, Xiaolu,. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers: A Novel. New York: Anchor Books, 2008. Print.
Tags: fiction, London, Chinese, traveling, love, foreign culture

Haddon, Mark. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Doubleday, 2008. Print.
Tags: fiction, autism, family, mystery

Harrison, K. David. The Last Speakers: The Quest to Save the World's most Endangered Languages. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2010. Print.
Tags: Foreign languages, disappearing languages, travel, Russia, society

Harrison, K. David. When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.
Tags: Disappearing languages, travel, linguistics, anthropology, knowledge

Hinsley, F. H., and Alan Stripp. Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. Print.
Tags: History, World War II, cryptography, Great Britain, personal narratives

Hoffman, Eva. Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Penguin Books, 1990. Print.
Tags: Memoir, American history, Polish, immigration, foreign languages, culture

Hogan, Linda. Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World. New York: Touchstone, 1996. Print.
Tags: Nature, environment

Itani, Frances. Deafening. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Print.
Tags: Fiction, deafness, World War II

Kenneally, Christine. The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York: Viking, 2007. Print.
Tags: Language, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience

King, Dave. The Ha-Ha: A Novel. New York: Back Bay, 2006. Print.
Tags: Fiction, friendship, love, Vietnam War

Little, Elizabeth. Biting the Wax Tadpole: Confessions of a Language Fanatic. Hoboken, N.J.: Melville House, 2007. Print.
Tags: linguistics, foreign languages, translation, humor

Lynch, Jack. The Lexicographer's Dilemma the Evolution of Proper English, from Shakespeare to South Park. New York: Walker, 2009. Print.
Tags: Linguistics, English, technology, grammar

Malladi, Amulya. The Sound of Language: A Novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008. Print.
Tags: fiction, foreign languages, refugees, Muslim culture, friendship

Maushart, Susan. The Winter of our Disconnect: How Three Totally Wired Teenagers (and a Mother Who Slept with Her iPhone) Pulled the Plug on their Technology and Lived to Tell the Tale. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2011. Print.
Tags: Technology, social media, family

McCrum, Robert. Globish: How the English Language Became the World's Language. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2010. Print.
Tags: English, politics, globalization, colonization, history

Napoli, Donna Jo. Language Matters: A Guide to Everyday Questions about Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Print.
Tags: language, linguistics, culture, society

Nunberg, Geoffrey. Going Nucular: Language, Politics, and Culture in Controversial Times. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. Print.
Tags: Politics, language, linguistics, society, culture

Okrent, Arika. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2009. Print.
Tag: artificial languages, foreign languages, history, linguistics

Pepperberg, Irene M. Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process. New York: Harper, 2009. Print.
Tags: Animals, language, research

Rich, Katherine Russell. Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in another Language. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009. Print.
Tags: memoir, travel, India, language acquisition

Sacks, Oliver W. Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf. New York: Vintage Books, 2000. Print.
Tags: deafness, sign language, neuroscience, linguistics, medicine

Schaller, Susan, and Oliver W. Sacks. A Man without Words. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Print.
Tags: language, deafness, sign language, communication

See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2006. Print.

Shea, Ammon. Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages. New York: Penguin Group, 2008. Print.
Tags: Dictionaries, words, vocabulary, English

Siegel, Lee. Against the Machine: How the Web is Reshaping Culture and Commerce--and Why it Matters. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2008. Print.
Tags: technology, internet, psychology, society, culture

Sunstein, Cass R. Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.
Tags: information, decision-making, technology, society

Tannen, Deborah Ph D. You Just Don't Understand. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990. Print.
Tags: Communication, men, women, relationships

Truss, Lynne. Eats Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York, N.Y: Gotham Books, 2006. Print.
Tags: punctuation, grammar, linguistics, history, English

Uhlberg, Myron. Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love. New York: Bantam Books, 2009. Print.
Tags: Deafness, family, sign language, America

Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print.
Tags: Oxford English Dictionary, vocabulary, insanity, history

Xu, Ruiyan. The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai: A Novel. H.B. Fenn and Co., 2010. Print.
Tags: Fiction, China, language, relationships