The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

The Bookbinder of Jericho Reviews

• 
  Marianne

  “’Their lives are barely recorded,’ Ma had said once, when I asked what happened to the women of Troy. ‘So their deaths aren’t worth writing about’. So say the poets, I thought. The men who hold the pen.”
  
  The Bookbinder of Jericho is a companion novel to The Dictionary of Lost Words by Australian author, Pip Williams. Since they were twelve years old, Peggy Jones and her twin sister, Maude have worked as bindery girls at Clarendon Press. The tasks can be varied, but too often, Peggy finds herself reading when she should be folding, or gathering or sewing. And she has to watch out for Maude, whose distraction can lead to spoiled copies.
  
  It’s one of the reasons Peggy hasn’t tried to advance her position, even though she’s smart enough: she promised Ma she would look after Maude. She’s unaware of what Helen Jones used to say to her best friend Tilda, Taylor: “Peg spends so much time looking back to see where Maude is, I’m afraid she’ll never move forward.”
  
  Maude is different, special: “She stored phrases like a printer stored plates – the words set and ready to use when needed… Maude filtered conversation like a prism filters light.” Today she might be described as on the spectrum, but in 1914, Peggy underestimates her ability to adapt.
  
  Each time she leaves the bindery to head home to their narrowboat, Calliope, Peggy looks longingly across Walton Street at Somerville College, where she would dearly love to Read English, to, one day, write for those voiceless women. But she knows that bindery girls, no matter how many books they secretly read, are never good enough to be accepted in those hallowed halls: the separation between Town and Gown might as well be a solid wall.
  
  Just as the Press workforce is being depleted by men enlisting to fight the Germans, a compositor named Gareth Owens comes in with a special request: the bindery forewoman looks the other way, after hours, as Peggy helps him to fold, gather, and sew the book he has printed for his beloved. Women’s Words and Their Meanings has been compiled by Esme Nicoll and, watching old Eb bind the volume and gild the title, Peggy is proud to have been part of this secret project. It galvanises her desire to write.
  
  When she was alive, Helen Jones filled Calliope with reading matter, taught her daughters to read, and discussed the classics. Later, Peggy thinks about the books, sections, manuscripts her mother had amassed: “They made Calliope even smaller, even tighter. ‘They will expand your world’, Ma had said. But if I hadn’t read them, I wouldn’t know how small my world was.”
  
  But Peggy is unaware that there are people working behind the scenes to help fulfill that dream. When the opportunity is put in front of her, she is, at first, uncertain, despite encouragement from all around her. She will need to pass exams, to study. Ancient Greek was never on the curriculum at St Barnabas, and A Primer of Greek Grammar will become the most hated book she opens. Can she ever become a Somervillian?
  
  The author’s meticulous research is apparent in every paragraph, but she weaves her wealth of information into the story with consummate subtlety: it never feels like a lesson. Peggy and Maude’s daily routine describes life on a narrowboat; Peggy’s volunteer work, reading and writing for injured servicemen, highlights the suffering caused by the war when she comes in contact with a Belgian soldier, Sgt Bastiaan Peeters, whose injuries include a horrible facial disfigurement.
  
  If the scant detail of the letters received from their narrowboat neighbour, Jack Rowntree, conforms to the official version of life in the trenches, missives from Tilda in her VAD nursing role in France, cleverly bypassing the censor’s check, offer a more realistic view of the front. Oxford’s reception of Belgian refugees, despite the trauma they have clearly suffered, is not always charitable. All this against background of the struggles for Women’s Suffrage, and the devastating effects of the Spanish ‘flu pandemic.
  
  At all times, Peggy’s love for books shines through: “Reading was such a quiet activity, and the reader in their parlour or leaning against the trunk of a tree would never imagine all the hands their book had been through, all the folding and cutting and beating it had endured. They would never guess how noisy and smelly the life of that book had been before it was put in their hands.”
  
  Anyone who loved The Dictionary of Lost Words will be delighted to enter that world again. Williams gives the reader wonderful characters, such gorgeous prose that it’s hard to limit the quotes, and a plot to make you laugh, make you cry, make you feel. Utterly enthralling, this is historical fiction at its finest.
  This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by Better Reading Preview and Affirm Press.
  
• 
  Shelleyrae at Book'd Out

  “Your job is to bind books, not read them…”
  
  Pip Williams blends history with imagination, weaving a captivating, poignant tale of desire, duty, grief and love in The Bookbinder of Jericho, a companion novel to her award winning fiction debut, The Dictionary of Lost Words.
  
  Set within the bindery of the Oxford University Clarendon Press, we are introduced to Peggy, who, wielding her late mother’s bonefolder, gathers and folds the pages of books she dreams of studying at University, but as a Town, with the added responsibility of her vulnerable twin sister, Maude, such ambition has always seemed impossible. Then World War I breaks out, heralding change that seems to bring the future Peggy wants within her grasp, but war always calls for sacrifice.
  
  Told in five parts, beginning in 1914 and ending in 1918, The Bookbinder of Jericho is well grounded in historical fact, exploring the gatekeeping of education and knowledge, womens suffrage, the horrors of war, post traumatic stress, and the devastating spread of Spanish Flu. It’s also a thought provoking and emotional story, rendering longing, romance, heartache, and loss with sincerity.
  
  Peggy is a complex central figure, intelligent and dutiful but prickly, her resentment of all she is denied, by her gender, her social status, and her responsibilities, is never far from the surface. Though they are identical in looks, Maude’s contented nature and simple needs contrasts sharply with that of her twin. The supporting characters, including family friend Tilda (who appeared in The Dictionary of Lost Words), and Belgian refugees Lotte and Bastiaan, are well drawn and enrich the story.
  
  Evocative prose effortlessly conjures movement and place. I found it easy to visualise the sisters crowded narrowboat lined with books and manuscripts, the balletic grace of the bindery women sweeping pages into their arms, the intimidating architecture of Oxford University, and Maude carefully folding her array of colourful paper stars.
  
  The Bookbinder of Jericho is a rich, lyrical, beautifully crafted novel, I won’t hesitate to recommend.
• 
  The Book Squirrel

  I am beyond thrilled to read the proof!
  
  This book is set in the same Oxford as Dictionary, with some familiar and some new characters. I cried within the first three chapters and could barely put it down. Scenes were woven with such beautiful words, it easily played out like a movie in my mind. It’s a gorgeous story, and certainly makes you appreciate the universal power of books/reading and what a privilege it is in having the skill to be able to read and access to virtually unlimited books and education.
  
  I'd love to write more, but I don't want to give anything more away until it's published and more people have snatched it up! I will just say, that readers who loved Dictionary are going to want to read this, and will not be disappointed.
• 
  Marie

  ‘Your job, Miss Jones, is to bind the books, not read them’
  
  What a beautifully written masterpiece!
  I’d be just like Peggy and would want to read all the books that I bind.
  
  This is a wonderful companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words and I thought the connections and references throughout the book were so perfect.
  
  I couldn’t stop placing myself in peoples shoes while reading this story; imagine being a bookbinder in 1915; imagine losing loved ones in the war and seeing all those innocent people hurt and wounded both physically and mentally; imagine wanting to further your education but you’re not allowed; imagine losing your mum at such a young age.
  
  There were so many thought provoking scenarios, feelings, heartaches and reminders throughout this book.
  
  I absolutely adored Peggy and Maude and how they interacted. I especially loved how all the characters were there for each other, they were supported, encouraged, cared for and nurtured. It was beautiful.
  
  Ah my heart! It was truly amazing. And that ending!!! It was the perfect ending.
  
  Thank you to @betterreadingau and @affirmpress for a copy of this book to review.
• 
  Maureen

  I have some mixed feelings about this book. I loved the setting and the premise. It was a unique look at a specific population that has been underrepresented in the history of WWI. However, I didn't really like Peg, the main character. She's dissatisfied with her lot in life, and understandably so, but she treats her friends and loved ones poorly because of her frustration. Her friend Gwen benefits from the systemic sexism in society but Peg doesn't have to be so mean or angry at Gwen. The book is also longer than I felt it needed to be. I was having trouble staying interested until the end. I loved Tilda's character and would love to have seen more off her and Maude. This is very well-written and researched, despite my few complaints.
• 
  Karen Brooks

  Absolutely sublime. Loved every word.
• 
  Amy Lynch

  Wow wow wow! Massive shoutout to the team at @affirmpress for this early edition of the amazing new novel The Bookbinder of Jericho from Pip Williams. This book has blown my already high expectations for her writing way out of the water!
  
  In this beautiful companion to the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams explores another little-known slice of history seen through women's eyes. Evocative, subversive and rich with unforgettable characters, The Bookbinder of Jericho is a story about knowledge who gets to make it, who gets to access it, and what is lost when it is withheld.
  
  The thing I truly love about Pip Williams writing is the way that she embraces the power of females during significant periods of history - the suffragette movement, women obtaining the vote, access to university degrees, taking over industry while men are fighting in the war - and the way that she shows just how powerful a sisterhood can be. This book is all about love, family (both born and found), determination, tolerance, acceptance and so much more. It is a love story in more facets than I imagined - the sisterhood between Peggy and Maude, the found family between all the residents of the boats, the friendship of the women from the bindery, and the love story between Peggy and Bastiaan.
  
  This book is a companion to The Dictionary of Lost Words and is essentially told as a simultaneous storyline in terms of events, characters, and relationships. I would recommend reading DOLW first, but as long as you read them both, the story will fit together perfectly ❤️
• 
  Déwi

  The Bookbinder of Jericho is a wonderful and captivating story of sisterhood, aspirations and opportunity. Pip Williams weaves a story between ‘town’ (the workers) and ‘gown’ (the scholars); centred on twin sisters, Peg and Maude Jones, who work in the book bindery and set against the backdrop of WW1 and the effects of the war in Oxford.
  
  Williams' story perfectly balances elements of history, romance, aspiration, class and wealth divide; alongside the hardships, heartbreaks and trauma of war. It's a story of resilient women. And the literary references throughout and Peg's love of books will resonate with all booklovers.
  
  I missed my bus stop I was so immersed in the story! And I was thinking about the characters in between. 🚌📚🫣
  
  If you loved The Dictionary of Lost Words then you will definitely love Williams' new book. The Bookbinder of Jericho beautifully complements The Dictionary of Lost Words, which is a book I enjoyed but didn't love at the time. I had felt there were more stories to tell of the many wonderful characters Williams introduced and I had wanted more at the time I read it. I plan to reread The Dictionary of Lost Words! And here's hoping there are more books to come.
  
  Thanks to #netgalley and @affirmpress for the e-ARC in return for an honest review.
• 
  Louise

  3.5 stars
  
  
  This is a good continuation of the lost words, and I smiled when characters I remembered cropped up.
  I smiled a lot, some of the characters and their interactions were just comforting.
  Which contrasts nicely to the war, and it's effects.
  I didnt warm to Peg, but that didn't stop me enjoying the book, and hoping everything worked out, that everyone came home.
  A bit slow in parts, but mostly a very enjoyable read.
• 
  Farrells Bookshop

  The companion novel to 'Dictionary of Lost Words,' however, there is a very loose character tie in linking the two, so you do not have to have read the first book in order to read this one.
  
  Set in WW1 in a bindery, sprinkled in are themes of romance and female empowerment.
  
  Read by Suzie
• 
  Brooke

  I need at least 24hrs before I can discuss this book