I am finishing a book review that has taken longer than I thought so in the meantime let me post another good review of Is That A Fish In Your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos (my copy is on order and the US publication date is early October). Here's the opening para of Robert Chandler's review for the Spectator (and if this review doesn't whet your appetite, I don't know what would):

David Bellos is a professor of comparative literature. He is the main English translator of George Perec and Ismail Kadare, and he has written biographies of Perec, Jacques Tati and the French writer and con man Romain Gary. His most recent book, for which he draws on all his wide range of interests, is a clear and lively survey of the world of interpreting and translating. He covers everything from subtitling films to translating poetry, from the genesis of simultaneous interpreting in the early days of the UN to the advances he predicts — somewhat to my surprise — in computer translation.