An Author Interview with Laura Spinney

Hello Everyone! I want to draw your attention to our latest author interview, conducted by Tim with Laura Spinney.

A Paris-based British science journalist best known for Pale Rider, a global history of the 1918 influenza, her new book, Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, takes a look at the history and evolution of Proto-Indo-European.

Come read what she has to say here: https://blog.librarything.com/2025/05/author-interviews-laura-spinney/

Great interview! I had to add Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global to my TBR.

So many great thoughts. I like especially her three observations: the art of communication, the constant underestimation of how, throughout history, people cover long distances (as I am reading in Homer's Odyssey). Concerning the malleable aspect, language also has incredible depth, as Laura Spinney addresses partly with the time capsule; but asking contemporaries to describe a word and what it means to them one receives umpteen stories. It is amazing, how letters and sounds unfold into feelings, associations of cognitive and indescribable notion, sense memories etc. I am certainly curious about her book. Thanks for the interview.

I think my Other Reader will totally go for this book if I put it in front of her.

It was a fun interview to do. And, honestly, half the reason I did it was to see if I could get the book quicker--the UK release date came irritatingly before the US one!

Obviously, I wanted to ask her more questions. But we keep interviews short to prevent burnout—and get them back!

Stay tuned. I may do a review of The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting Their Story by J. P. Mallory. Mallory is the author of my introduction to the PIE problem, In Search of the Indo-Europeans. That is more scholarly than Spinney's book, but consequently rather drier, and it is only about the PIE homeland problem. The new book looks to be more general, making these two 2025 books the Armageddon and Deep Impact of Indo-European. Having back-to-back interviews with PIE authors is exactly the kind of madness I get to do as President of LibraryThing!

>5 timspalding: the Armageddon and Deep Impact of Indo-European

It's oddly comforting when others use such analogies as these.

>5 timspalding:

the UK release date came irritatingly before the US one!

I get The Guardian's "Bookmarks" newsletter every Sunday. It is very common for me to discover a book I want to read, only to find that it hasn't yet been published in the US. Understandable with a British publisher, but frustrating nonetheless.

>5 timspalding: In Search of the Indo-Europeans wasn't my introduction to the topic, but the first lengthy work that wasn't just part of an introduction course. I very much enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to Spinney's book.