Science journalist and writer Laura Spinney is coming to the bookshop on 5th June to talk about her latest book Proto : How One Ancient Language Went Global.

The book explores how one language emerged from the last ice age before exploding around the world until today its descendants constitute the world’s largest language family, and are the thread that connects Dante’s Inferno to the Rig Veda, The Lord of the Rings to the love poetry of Rumi. Indo-European languages are spoken by nearly half of humanity. How did this happen?

Laura Spinney set out to answer that question, retracing the Indo-European odyssey across continents and millennia. With her we travel the length of the steppe, navigating the Caucasus, the silk roads and the Hindu Kush. We follow in the footsteps of nomads and monks, Amazon warriors and lion kings – the ancient peoples who spread these languages far and wide.

In the present, Spinney meets the scientists on a thrilling mission to retrieve those lost languages: the linguists, archaeologists and geneticists who have reconstructed this ancient diaspora. What they have learned has vital implications for our modern world, since people and their languages are on the move again. Proto is a revelatory portrait of world history in its own words.

Laura will be in the bookshop on the 5th June. Doors open at 18.30 and the talk will start at 19.00, followed by questions and answers. Entry is free.

To sign up for the event, click here

To read The Guardian review click here and to read Laura’s latest article in The Guardian (The big idea: could the English language die?) click here.

To read the review of Proto in Nature, click here.