The Adventure of English
The Adventure of English is an enjoyable book about the history of the English language. It gives a good summary of the main events that shaped English.
It is written from a British perspective. The anthropomorphism by the author of treating English as a "person" is a little weird but doesn't interfere too much with the text: "But English was too smart to be pinned down, even by the English".
Author loves language but has a survivors bias in claiming that English was uniquely adapteble and therefore strong.
This book was recommended by Eric.