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A fun, humorous and broadly accessible look at the language landscape of Europe. For the various languages featured (some European languages are omitted, but the major ones are covered along with some unusual lesser-known tongues) the author alternately delves into:

-interesting or dismaying features, such as spelling or grammar quirks;
-history, evolution, spread/retreat, or death/revival;
-links or contrasts with related or nearby languages/dialects;
-notable linguists who helped shape certain languages;
and much more.

The book avoids getting bogged down in linguistics jargon or dry theory and facts, but nevertheless remains very informative. And even if you do get bored of its easily digestible chapters, the author occasionally shakes things up, for example with a humorous tract on how to merge two complicated languages, Slovak and Bulgarian, into one easy language, Slogarian. The content, format and humour ultimately make this a pleasant read for anyone with at least a passing interest in languages and linguistics, and it's likely to inspire you to read more on the subject.

That said, there are a handful of flaws:

* Some odd image choices, and many are window dressing (pictures of statues and flags) instead of anything informative (linguistic maps and diagrams, for example)

* The map inside the cover leaves something to be desired (shading and/or colour-coding for example) and it's duplicated inside the back cover as well, when a family tree of languages would have been a welcome replacement.

* As noted in another review, the chapters can be very short and some languages receive far more attention than others. Poor Ossetian has a 3-page chapter during which you'll learn its general location, number of speakers and its linguistic branch, but nothing else. (I wonder how this "language spotter's guide" expects me to spot Ossetian with such scant information.) I had hoped to get a slight impression of each language's vital statistics and characteristics along with some example sentences, but this isn't guaranteed.

* While the book's obviously intended to be quite accessible to the layman, I expect some may still feel daunted by some of the terminology or concepts and all the name-dropping of various places, locations, people and peoples throughout history. In particular I think the author made a misstep by referring to cases a few times early in the book, including the frightening revelation that Finnish has 15 cases. I expect a large chunk of Anglophones won't know what cases are as a result of mainly being exposed to caseless languages (e.g. English, French, Spanish). If you're patient you might be able to contain your curiosity until he finally explains what cases are on page 180.

But, all in all, a very fun read.