Dave has been reading Dawkins. Good! I bloggedthis a while back about Dawkins quoting Darwin understanding the meme concept.

Dawkins has written very well and clearly, and had some very original and powerful ideas. The Blind Watchmaker is great, and I liked the more academic Extended Phenotype too.

However, these days he seems to be writing the same book over and over again, getting more and more vexed that not everyone accepts his meme explanation of religion.

Dave finds Pinker hard, which is odd coming from a Heidigger fan. Pinker also writes very clearly about complex ideas Don't read his academic books (I made that mistake - my head still hurts after reading those parse trees).
Read The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works and Words and Rules.
Also, this book on how writing evolved, and how to teach it that he wrote the foreword for is fascinating.