A lot of people like this book. I found it to be OK. But it is cheap for Kindle, so knock yourself out (but if you live in Minnesota, pronounce the ‘k’ in ‘knock.’): The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way

And, the book we have all been waiting to be declassified: The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception

Once a top-secret training manual for CIA field agents in the early Cold War Era of the 1950s, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception is now available to the general public. An amazing historical artifact, this eye-opening handbook offered step-by-step instructions to covert intelligence operatives in all manner of sleight of hand and trickery designed to thwart the Communist enemy. Part of the Company’s infamous MK-ULTRA—a secret mind-control and chemical interrogation research program—this legendary document, the brainchild of John Mulholland, then America’s most famous magician, was believed lost forever. But thanks to former CIA gadgeteer Bob Wallace and renowned spycraft historian H. Keith Melton, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception is now available to everyone, spy and civilian alike.