From some of the comments in this post, I have decided to do a series of posts presenting an overview of the works of my favorite linguist-writers John McWhorter, Geoffrey Nunberg, and Steven Pinker. Today I will talk about McWhorter.
McWhorter's book Word on the Street is the best presentation of the descriptivist school of thought I have ever seen. The second half of the book is devoted to the Ebonics controversy, which didn't interest me the first time I read the book, but I have come around to see the relevance of it to McWhorter's thesis. He also devotes one chapter to interesting thoughts on translating Shakespeare into contemporary English. (For my favorite quote from the book, see my post I linked to at the top of this post.)
His book Power of Babel is a good read for those interested in historical linguistics, with less of an overarching thesis. I have yet to read his newest book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue, which I expect is equally up my alley.
His book Doing Our Own Thing features some thought-provoking discussions about the increase in colloquial language in our society, but I was not so taken in by McWhorter's thesis about the "degradation" of popular culture, and I think his point is undermined by the rise of the Internet.
McWhorter has also written a handful of political commentary books, and is a regular contributor to The New Republic. He is usually identified as a conservative, but you wouldn't know that from the candidates he supported in the past three presidential elections.
As a linguist, McWhorter's specialized area of study is creoles.