Join a book club that is reading The Dictionary of Lost Words: Reese's Book Club: A Novel!
The Dictionary of Lost Words: Reese's Book Club: A Novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “Delightful . . . [a] captivating and slyly subversive fictional paean to the real women whose work on the Oxford English Dictionary went largely unheralded.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARD
“A marvelous fiction about the power of language to elevate or repress.”—Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of People of the Book
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
WINNER OF THE AUSTRALIAN BOOK INDUSTRY AWARD
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
This book took a lot of turns I didn't expect. There were some things that weren't explained throughout (the white feather on the door?) I enjoyed the book and learning about the history of the Oxfors English Dictionary
At first, hard to connect with the characters and had a slow start
Enjoyed the historical setting/the plight of women’s rights
Loved it! I never even considered how the dictionary came to be. Loved this story with some history woven in.
I loved the IDEA of this book, but I felt that it could have been edited to be more succinctly crafted. There were long, repetitious descriptions of the Scriptorium and those who worked in it that bored me. The words and the colorful characters Esmé turned to for definitions were the best parts of the book, but it could have been 100 pages shorter.
This book was really charming. It was written really well where it made history interesting to me than putting me to sleep. I normally don’t like historical anything unless it’s a nonfiction book of historical events that I am interested in. Esme’s character is beautifully portrayed as being vulnerable yet strong and empowering to the female psyche. Though it wasn’t a book that wowed me in a sense of action and suspense, it did capture my attention and held on to me till the end. I would recommend it to anyone.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.