The Bookbinder, Pip Williams's deliciously literary second novel, takes readers into the complex lives of the "bindery girls" at Oxford University Press during World War I.
Since she left school to work alongside her twin sister, Maude, in the bindery, Peggy Jones has longed to study the books whose pages she folds. But, after the death of their mother, Peggy must look after Maude, who is possessed of nimble fingers and an unusual brain, but unable to handle most household tasks on her own. War comes to Europe and Belgian refugees flood into Oxford. Peggy and Maude find their safe world upended: first by the exodus of dozens of men they know, and then by the arrival of two Belgians, wounded soldier Bastiaan and librarian Lotte.
Williams returns to the world she created in The Dictionary of Lost Words, which includes some familiar characters along with a new ensemble cast revolving around Peggy and Maude, their colleagues at the press, and the refugees and students they encounter. Peggy is forced to confront her desire for love, and her long-held dream to study at Somerville College, while Maude listens to the war news, folding pages into intricate origami. Williams sensitively explores wartime trauma through Lotte's and Bastiaan's experiences, and highlights the longstanding "town and gown" divide in Oxford, which fuels Peggy's fears--and ambition--regarding her academic dreams. Incisive and richly detailed, with as many layers as the books Peggy folds, The Bookbinder is a captivating historical novel and a tribute to the multifaceted power of words. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams