 And you're very welcome back and that was the sound of Cara Dillon and black is the colour of my true love's hair and as promised joining me in the studio tonight to review our book of the month The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams. We've got Connie McGrenahan and sister Orly Karen and you're very welcome ladies. Thank you Jean. Thanks Jean. So it's great to have you Orly here because the last time just circumstances didn't allow it and so it's great to have you. Thanks a million. So this is as I mentioned earlier the Dubu novel by Pip Williams. It was the number eight bestseller in Australia back in 2021 and it's now got the rights for a TV series and a possible film. It's not a book that the title wouldn't entice it to lift it Connie. No it well it was you that suggested it so you enticed me to lift it. No so the book centres around Esme who is the she's actually a fictional character but the book is based on it as a work of historical fiction and it's it's it centres around the word bond made or it starts in 1901 the word bond bond made was discovered to be missing from the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and the book centres around then the character Esme who by the way stole the word or found the word under the table so she's a fictional character and as I say Esme's father in the story works for James Murray who was the real life editor of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and I suppose it's based around the compilation of the book. Orly do you want to say then what happens next? Yeah well as a child Esme spends much of her childhood under the the sorting table where the lexicographers and the editor of the dictionary and her father work and she's fascinated by the words and there's a real bond between her and her father to do with all the words and he sort of teaches her to read as well you know sounding out the words and as Connie said sometimes she finds these discarded words under the table and that first word that she found was bond made and when she looked it up it meant slave girl and this is sort of a real pivotal point of the story because um as I say bond made meant slave girl but she would have had a maid herself Lizzie who's a wonderful character in the story and I suppose it left Esme feeling quite conflicted that um she was kind of middle class and had this servant girl friend Lizzie who looked after her and was Esme or was um Lizzie a slave girl to her in ways even though they had a wonderful friendship and relationship too. And then Esme later discovers or decides that she's actually a bond maid herself to the dictionary. Yeah she's a slave to the words to the dictionary. Yeah it meant the word to her. It's very much the whole the bond maid thing is it very it recurs yeah it reoccurs lots throughout the book. I thought I thought one of the things about the book that I loved was her uh Pip Williams development of relationships and I suppose having a very very very tight relationship with my own father I could see the love that her father and her had and also the love that Lizzie had there was a lot of love in the book. Yeah there was yeah there was a lot of acceptance what I found and I suppose intriguing was all this acceptance yeah it was everybody that she encountered through her trials and tribulations accepted her for what had happened you know she becomes involved in the Suffragette movement Lizzie's very against the Suffragette movement her her by the way made friend because she feels that it will have never benefit her as a working class person and she's happy just to keep the roof over her head and doesn't want to get involved with Suffragettes but when Esme does and gets into trouble as a result of it Lizzie backs her up all the time her father backs her up all the time the her aunt by the way yeah backs her up all the time there's a lot of acceptance and as you say love great characters I have to say great yeah yeah she is motherless I suppose as well we we never really mentioned that at the beginning so I think there are a lot of people who do love and protect her and I think she's a wonderful curious little girl that so many people seem to have fallen in love with her all the other lexicographers in the room you know Dr James Murray himself you know had great time for her given her birthday presents making her feel very special so I think she was a special person and a great you know lead character in the book but as Connie said yeah there was yeah a lot of love and as you say the father-daughter relationship really was beautiful and him navigating the tricky moments with her her growing up to be a teenager and you know just guiding her as best as he could and wanting the best for her you know you see even as as she gets a bit older he would have loved her to have settled down and gone the traditional route but she had other ideas for herself and you know he kind of knew better than he backed off away but then but yeah I thought her development of the characters was really good you know you really felt that you knew them and there were we've talked about Esme and Lizzie but then there's that wonderful character in the covered market whenever she sort of left the security of her own home to go out and collect words that maybe the lower class would have used that didn't merit me in the dictionary and maybe were vulgar I can think of a few four letter words beginning with C that will not repeat on on on radio but I thought that Mabel in particular was a lovely character you liked her I did because for me the book did start off a little bit slow and just to say I did I did the audiobook so I was listening to the book and it was read by a fabulous actor an English lady I don't know her from any any movies or anything but her voice was beautiful to listen to and she put on lots of voices for the different characters so when she did Mabel at the market and Mabel was coming out with these quite crude offensive words for me after the slow start of the book this really had me giggling then out loud you know I'd be out walking yes it lifted me and I was out walking I found myself giggling and you know I'd be in the car listening to it and things like that that's my best way of access and books at the minute with the busy lifestyle I don't get to sit to read sometimes so the car or wherever waiting on the kids to finish their activities it's a great way to to access a book but yeah Mabel I thought provided a bit of comic relief and as you say some of the words she was saying were quite offensive and crude but they really interested as me because as me was learning these are words that are spoken by women but they're not written down so the men weren't even considering considering them as an option for the English dictionary and so she was starting to look at the Oxford English dictionary then as quite a biased piece of work you know because they weren't taken into account the words that women were using you know and I suppose just got off an attendant for a minute when you're doing audiobook do you think that that added to this book and to other books when you're actually listening to somebody reading it Oh definitely I mean I probably could count on one hand voices I didn't enjoy I definitely think they pick very skilled high quality actors now for audiobooks and it brings a whole new dimension to to the characters I mean you know the the way they can change their voices for a particular character it is like listening to play it's kind of taken me away from podcasts I would have listened to a lot of podcasts whereas now I find I definitely think it's a great way of accessing books if you aren't getting time to sit and read you know I do it on the way to work because one day I work in Donegal Town so that's my hour I've got about 120 minutes left in a book yeah and you know you're gonna get it finished tomorrow yes and also I suppose one of the things is it's about words but there's a very subtle description of society at the time and how women were treated you know the suffragettes but even you know the fact that Lizzie is the paid help and what her words don't count yes and there's one lovely phrase that she said in the book if I remember it now that basically that she does everything and if it wasn't for that she wouldn't exist yeah yeah and that's why she enjoyed embroidery because it was something that she could show that she had done because everything I do is either eaten or swept up or put away there's no trace of anything that I do which was as you say very significant in the book yeah and also was also education what Dr. Murray's daughter from what I read and maybe I misread it was that she got a degree and but she couldn't graduate because she was a woman and that was another thing that woman weren't allowed to do and I think she said just no no degree no graduation because she had no trousers and I just thought that that was no woman I suppose before they got the vote they were in the 19th century early 20th century they were very second-class citizens and that's definitely touched on in the book with you know the the character of Tilda becomes Esme's friend she's the actress and she becomes like the the activist of the book really and gets herself in a bit of trouble and has to has to flee the town of Oxford but I didn't think it overdrilled that too much because when I read the you know the blurb I thought oh gosh it's going to be very heavy now suffragette movement and but actually it touched on it very nicely and Esme chooses not to go down the the real hardcore activist radical path but yet in her own way by compiling these words the the women's words the women you know the words that were considered maybe offensive and crude but that gave meaning to their lives and and also she wrote their names beside their definition and their words so she was given like as you said Lizzie was never going to get any recognition for anything yet Lizzie's name was in the book at the end the dictionary of lost words you know I think she gave a great definition of knackered you know being just more tired than a horse because you just work so hard all day it's not listless it's not exhausted it's way more than that it's knackered after a day of service in a home and there were there were so many characters in it there were sort of the main characters that we've mentioned who was your favorite orla and probably Lizzie overall you know but there was moments like Mabel had her real funny moments Gareth I thought the the person that you know becomes Esme's special person I suppose um was a lovely person a very down-to-earth young man who her father would have been delighted with but overall probably Lizzie I think she was the most real um and you know very humble and she she accepted her lot in life and she was clever Lizzie was clever you know she was a lot cleverer than she realized herself yes you know like saying for example the embroidery and like or Esme at one point says Lizzie do you think God will forgive me and Lizzie says well you have to learn to forgive yourself you know and I thought the part the part where um after Esme had been sick and she was struggling or whatever and they went to the cottage Lizzie really came into herself she got a friend yeah that was you know when she became sort of queen of her small castle you know and that was a nice part as well but I'm like ordered to I like Lizzie the best as well I wasn't mad about Mabel I found Mabel crude do you know what I mean and I know maybe it's different when you were listening to not a girl or whatever yeah but I didn't like her at all you know when it came to her I sort of had this vision of a wee grey-haired person like a witch yeah oh I know yeah and I think yeah yeah and without giving too much away for anyone who's listening who would like to read the book uh were you happy with the ending Connie um I thought it was a happy ending of sorts because I suppose the book was recognized and in whatever way I won't say how it was recognized but it was recognized as it should have been but I think overall I think it was quite sad you know I needed something out there I needed some I would have liked a little bit of something uplifting you know um it was what it was you know what what would you have liked best about it and what did you just like most about it I think I would have liked more emphasis on other characters I think the character of Esme you know I know she was the main character but I think there could have been more focus for example in Lizzie in her life we knew she was an orphan we knew her family had all been split up you know we knew that she was working for Dr Murray as as a maid or whatever I think she could have been a there could have been a wee bit more I kind of got fed up reading about Esme and what about yourself Orla um I I did like the ending because although there's certain things I would have liked to to ended up a different way I accepted what the ending was and I think in a sense it did come full circle you know because someone from her past well you know was was recognising her her work and the development of the dictionary of lost words and in a way I felt it came full circle like I definitely had a tear in my eye when I realised what had happened at the end and so for me no I thought it was a beautiful ending like it was bittersweet it absolutely was as Connie said too I think definitely you would have I was always wanting more about Lizzie like would she have met up with her friend from the holiday again would she have gone back there for another little holiday you know something more for Lizzie Lizzie just seemed to all she did was get older get older get her get greater yeah it was all about does well do you know what I mean for a person she devoted her life to Esme and do you remember Esme scratching and breaking the mother's hair and and all that do you know what I mean and Lizzie just accepted it accepted it and out of 10 what would you score it at Connie well I'd probably give it a seven and I would I would recommend anybody to read it definitely and what about yourself or an eight an eight from me it isn't my typical book now but I have to say I really got caught up in it and really enjoyed it especially through the audiobook I think it did bring a lot of life and you know a new dynamic to it as well yeah I could give it an eight and a half nine I loved it I thought it was a very gentle tender book very tenderly written and charming yeah a very charming book interesting so ladies thank you so much for taking time out on this what looks to be quite a nice evening from the weather we've been having and hopefully we'll get you back again in the near future lovely jean thanks a million cheers dump stores double sabers makes midweek meals simple and affordable step one cook omega-3 fish fingers 1 euro 49 for 15 pack