I started to read The Nation's Favourite by Simon Garfield, but it's been 'borrowed', so I'll have to wait for the return,
I've just read Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, (was lucky enough to see Dave Gorman at Yeovil's Octagon theatre, where he got the audience chanting "More Freight, On the canals"!)
thanks Bob! 
And now I'm just about to start The Adventure of English by Melvyn Bragg,
Being Somerset born, and learning some years ago that most of the south of England had accents like mine many years ago, English dialect and language have fascinated me, the corruption of our language(s) over the years eventually leading to 'the Queens English' is a little annoying, Shakespeare, for instance, would have spoken more like Phil from the Time Team, than Prince Charles, and would have 'heard 'the words he wrote in the same tongue, so shakespearean plays have been told in the wrong way for many years, just recently some artists have been putting the dialect back into his works.
the People of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and most of the North can hold there heads high for keeping their language alive!.... and that's why I'm reading this book, which tells the story of our language as if its an entity on a journey through time.
chrismoyles.net
