In May the CCR Book Club will be discussing "The Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams (Australian). This book is an amalgam of truth and historical fiction. Esme, a young girl, is witness to the writing of the first Oxford English Dictionary. She notices that many words are discarded and clandestinely starts a collection of those lost words. As The Guardian states, “when the word falls off a table in the Scriptorium….(Esme) pockets it. Then she starts collecting more words that the editors exclude or lose. Eventually, she includes these and others heard on the streets (knackered, latchkeyed, … and dollymop) in her own manuscript, Women’s Words and their Meanings.”
