The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams - February 26, 2024

Shirley was our host for this February 2024 meeting. Present were Beth, Carla, Colette, Linda, Marg, Marilyn and Shirley.  Betty was not at the meeting but sent her review to Shirley. We discussed Colette's book choice, The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. 

Pip Williams was born in London in 1969 to a Brazilian mother and Welsh father. She grew up in Sydney, Australia. Her first published work was at the age of 15, when she wrote a poem called Fifteen, and submitted it to a local magazine. She found out that she was dyslexic at the age of 17. In order to help his daughter, her dad gave her three dictionaries. Pip feels that this may be one of the reasons that she had such an interest in the compiling of the Oxford Dictionary. Ms. Williams has a PhD. In Public Health. She worked as an academic researcher and she feels it equipped her well to write novels. 

 

She and her family purchased a hobby farm and she began writing, leaving farming to her partner. The first book she wrote was One Italian Summer published in 2017 and popular in Australia.  She was inspired by the novel The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words by Simon Winchester, taking the part of this novel that dealt with the making of the Oxford English Dictionary as the basis for her new novel, The Dictionary of Lost Words that was published in 2020. It has been very popular worldwide and she has won several literary awards.  She has since written a third novel, published in 2023, The Bookbinder of Jericho. 

Our members, in general enjoyed the book and has a historical novel, found it interesting.  They did find, especially the beginning to be slow and tedious.  Most were surprised by the "unscientific" method that was used to make the dictionary.  The description of the scriptorium was quite interesting and added to our knowledge.  The description of the town of Oxford was particularly interesting to some of our members. 

Both Esme and Lizzie were well described and Lizzie, though illiterate was very smart.  The addition of the activities of the Women's Suffrage Movement was interesting and gave us information on how and when it began. The addition of this information, the description of the town of Oxford and the impact of World War I on Esme, Lizzie added to the interest of the book as a historical novel.  

Thank you Colette for presenting an interesting novel that generated a good amount of discussion.