50 book challenge: #9 and #10.

9. David Crystal, The Stories of English. The early material on Old and Middle English was a little dense for me, but overall a good introduction to English as the mongrel language that it is.

10. Dawn Powell, My Home Is Far Away. I love Dawn Powell. Her work is not especially plot-driven--more character sketches and individual scenes--but she did a great job in telling stories from two very different settings: small-town life in Ohio in the early 20th century, and high society in 1930s New York. For both of these, her stories were highly autobiographical, but this novel, though not published until 1944, was the most autobiographical tale of all. I still like Turn, Magic Wheel the best, and Dance Night is good, also.