Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing Book

This is an excellent overview of methods in linguistic reconstruction. The great bulk of the text is given to lucid, robust descriptions of the comparative method & internal reconstruction. Shorter, later chapters introduce typological & quantitative methods (primarily lexicostatistics/glottochronology, which it treats as one thing), as well as implications of reconstructions for determining language relationships, proto-language-speakers homelands, & some details of proto-cultures.

The book is cautious, & conscience of limitations of all methods, but thorough, presenting methods that have not won mainstream acceptance, but which have significant followings within professional linguistics. The writing should be accessible to a reader new to linguistics, but Fox does not forego important methodological detail (though in certain examples he notes simplification of language-historical detail for illustrational purposes).

In addition to the overall bibliography, each chapter concludes with a list of recommended reading, arranged in historical order, & in some chapters broken down by sub-theme.

Readers who are interested in the comparative method & internal reconstruction will probably want to read other works that have employed those methods, to see them in action, but they will not need additional instruction to understand how to implement the methods: One could conceivably competently use these methods on raw data after reading the book.

Readers who are interested in typology & glottochronology are not likely to feel that they have adequate tools to employ those methods after reading Linguistic Reconstruction, & will need to follow the chapter bibliographies.

It's worth noting that the book is from 1995. I don't know how dated that makes the content.