Helpful Score: 1
This deeply affecting book had me seeing the world through Esme Nicoll's eyes and thinking of words and language in a much deeper way. Williams' book made me realize how much we take for granted-- such as which words are included in a dictionary and which are not. The story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary is extraordinary to begin with, and I love how Williams wove Esme's story into its history. (Read the Author's Note!)
I became Esme as I read The Dictionary of Lost Words. I felt what she felt. I saw the world through her eyes. The most important people in the world to her (her Da, her Aunt Ditte, her surrogate mother Lizzie, the compositor Gareth) became all-important to me, too. I don't often have this strong of an emotional response to a book, and when I do, it leaves me a bit discombobulated (in a good way).
Williams wove just enough of the actual putting-together of the Oxford English Dictionary into this book to make me feel as though I had a hand in making it, too. Esme's life spanned the women's suffrage movement and World War I, and each event in her life shaped her outlook and her dedication to rescuing "lost words".
Character. Story. Time period. The power of words to shape our world. As I read The Dictionary of Lost Words, I thought of words and phrases I'd grown up hearing all the time that are no longer commonplace. I pondered their demise... and wondered what Esme would make of it all. The world Pip Williams created made me think, and it made me feel. How marvelous!
I became Esme as I read The Dictionary of Lost Words. I felt what she felt. I saw the world through her eyes. The most important people in the world to her (her Da, her Aunt Ditte, her surrogate mother Lizzie, the compositor Gareth) became all-important to me, too. I don't often have this strong of an emotional response to a book, and when I do, it leaves me a bit discombobulated (in a good way).
Williams wove just enough of the actual putting-together of the Oxford English Dictionary into this book to make me feel as though I had a hand in making it, too. Esme's life spanned the women's suffrage movement and World War I, and each event in her life shaped her outlook and her dedication to rescuing "lost words".
Character. Story. Time period. The power of words to shape our world. As I read The Dictionary of Lost Words, I thought of words and phrases I'd grown up hearing all the time that are no longer commonplace. I pondered their demise... and wondered what Esme would make of it all. The world Pip Williams created made me think, and it made me feel. How marvelous!
Helpful Score: 1
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams is not what I expect I choose to read it because - well, dictionary and words! I am taken aback. The main character is a young girl at the start of the story. This is significant. I find myself not only following Esme's story but also looking up and reading the history of the dictionary, the women's suffrage movement, and the timing of that history. This story has made me stop and think about the words we use. For that lesson, it will stay with me for a long while.
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/12/the-dictionary-of-lost-words.html
Reviewed for NetGalley
Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2021/12/the-dictionary-of-lost-words.html
Reviewed for NetGalley
Helpful Score: 1
Novel set against the great labor of compiling the Oxford English Dictionary. The daughter of one of the lexicographers becomes fascinated by the many words being excluded, mostly from the spoken vocabularies of women or of the laboring class.
Story of the lexicographers who undertook writing the Oxford English Dictionary pre-WW I. Esme is the daughter of one of the researchers/editors and grows up sitting under the editing table and learning to love words as much as her dad. However, as she grows she realizes that some words are omitted due to the fact that they relate to woman and are considered inconsequential or obscene by the Victorian men. (I'll admit some of the language is offensive, but it's not abundant.) Follows Esme and her friends and acquaintances for an interesting fictional history of "words".
