"Talking Hands," by Margalit Fox, is now online

From: Email - July 1, 2007

Dear friends and colleagues:

I'm delighted to announce that the Web site for my new book, "Talking Hands: What Sign Language Reveals About the Mind," is now live online. The link is: www.talkinghandsbook.com
( www.margalitfox.com will also take you there.)

"Talking Hands" will be published on August 21 by Simon & Schuster. Copies may be pre-ordered through my Web site at any time.

Written for a general readership, "Talking Hands" is a narrative nonfiction look at the signed languages of the Deaf, and what science is learning from them (a great deal, it turns out) about how all human language, signed and spoken, operates inside our heads. The narrative of the book follows four linguists -- Wendy Sandler, Mark Aronoff, Carol Padden and Irit Meir -- as they unravel a new sign language that has arisen, unbidden, in an isolated Bedouin village that has an unusually high rate of hereditary deafness. Because this sign language has arisen spontaneously, it offers the linguists a once-in-a-lifetime chance to observe the human "language instinct" in action -- to watch what happens when the mind has to make an entire language from scratch.

More information about the book, including excerpts, reviews, photographs and news of public appearances, is available on the Web site.

I warmly encourage you to visit the site, and to share this e-mail with your colleagues, students and friends. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the book, or about the site.

With all best wishes,

Margo

Margalit Fox
Staff Writer
The New York Times
620 Eighth Avenue
New York, NY 10018

tel: (212) 556-1467