Berlin is a bilingual city. Even despite writing this review in English, I am not quite anglo- or egocentric enough to mean its linguistic identity is split between German and my mother tongue. But it is a city in which an extraordinary number of people have proficiency in more than one languages (and many in many).
Costa's book, an excellent introduction to the neuroscience of what it means to be bilingual, is therefore a book for Berliners. In witty, digressive prose, he charts how bilingual people's brains are shaped differently (sometimes literally) from the moment of birth to old age. Although he is cautious not to claim too many pure benefits (as a Barcelonan, fluent in Spanish, Catalan and English that could be perceived as smug), he does say bilinguals may be more empathetic and less susceptible to dementia than monolinguals. A book for polyglots to feel more smug about themselves and to inspire monolingual, anglophone Berliners to finally sign up for that German course...

Ahoi book lovers and aspiring writers! You will adore Grant Snyder's creative one- to two-page comics. Going through this book a few pages per sitting, I couldn't help but marvel at Snyder's ingenuity and wit.
A failsafe gift for literary buffs.

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Ferrara, SilviaPortnowitz, ToddTranslator

Silvia Ferrara; Translated from the Italian by Todd Portnowitz

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The Greatest Invention

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