The Bookbinder of Jericho

A Novel

By: Pip Williams

Narrated by: Annabelle Tudor

Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

A young British woman working in a book bindery gets a chance to pursue knowledge and love when World War I upends her life in this new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club pick The Dictionary of Lost Words.

“Williams spins an immersive and compelling tale, sweeping us back to the Oxford she painted so expertly in The Dictionary of Lost Words.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrow boat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press.

Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them—but as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford’s Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding the pages of books in the company of the other bindery girls. She is extraordinary but vulnerable, and Peggy feels compelled to watch over her.

Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters’ lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can educate herself and use her intellect, not just her hands. But as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier—and the responsibility that comes with it—threaten to hold her back.

The Bookbinder is a story about knowledge—who creates it, who can access it, and what truths get lost in the process. Much as she did in the international bestseller The Dictionary of Lost Words, Pip Williams thoughtfully explores another rarely seen slice of history through women’s eyes.

©2023 Pip Williams (P)2023 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"“The Bookbinder is a confident and considered sequel that complicates Williams’s literary universe while riffing on class, family, trauma and remembrance. Williams fully inhabits the world of the bindery and it shows—there’s hardly a page out of place.”—The Guardian

“A brilliant exploration of who has access to knowledge and the experience of women during wartime.”—Good Weekend

“Pip Williams spins an immersive and compelling tale, sweeping us back to the Oxford she painted so expertly in The Dictionary of Lost Words. This time, as England is plunged into the Great War, women like Peggy Jones, long held back and underestimated, have an unexpected chance to show their strength, follow their deepest longings, and bravely step into lives larger than the ones the world has pinned them too. Williams is a fresh, exciting new voice in historical fiction.”—Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife

A superbly narrated insight into women's life on the home front during WW I.

Anabelle Tudor's performance of this beautiful book is quite flawless; every character of every class and both sexes is vividly portrayed. The horror of life and conditions on the Western Front comes through clearly in 'Tilda's letters home, without being dwelt upon. A tour de force!

Good from beginning to end

I think Pip Williams is becoming one of my new favorite authors for historical fiction. If you have read her, start with The Dictionary of Lost Words and follow it with The Bookbinder of Jericho. So good! Both of them. I laughed and cried. I am hoping for another book touching on these characters I’ve grown to love.

Brilliant historical fiction 

Beautifully detailed historical fiction. Pulled me into both the era and the characters. Elegantly intertwines researched facts and lived histories, viewed through the life of an imagined but very real main character and her closest companions.Loved this book! 

Beautiful and compelling

Absolutely wonderful telling of a handful of women and their role in world war, who won, toe through the eyes of a fascinating and intelligent lead character and her unconditionally loving sister. Absolutely enjoyed this book from beginning to end.

It was good

While I adored The Dictionary of Lost Words, I was not as enamored with this book. It took a long time for the book to build enough momentum to stir in me a desire to finish it. I kept drifting away. It was a combination of the war and the war efforts in conjunction with the suffragette movement that pulled the book in too many different directions. Maude was a great character and I really enjoyed the growth both she and Peggy went through.

A love story, a life story, a woman's story.

This was a very well rounded book and had a little bit of everything. I liked that at the end, while a period in the main characters life was wrapped up well and the book felt finished, you really felt that this was just the beginning, and wonder at how the characters life would continue from that moment on. delightful gem of a book.

A good next novel

Enjoyed discovering a few of the characters from her previous book. This time period is fascinating and I like think more about the hidden women’s roles. I look forward to more from this author. It’s well researched and enjoyable to listen to.

I could not finish

I disliked the narrator's /editors choice of accent and tone for the main character. I understand it was to convey a working class "factory" style, but it was just over the top; abrasive, grating, high-pitched. I disliked the sound from the beginning but thought I 'd give it a chance and get used to it, No, didn't happen.
I enjoyed the author's novel "Dictionary of Lost Words". For that reason and the premise of this novel in the editor's summary. A very good idea for a story line, But the writing, the delivery and the narration tone could not hold my interest in this audible version.

Disappointing

I was really looking forward to this book after reading the dictionary of lost words, and I pushed through and read the whole thing, despite the first half of the book being surprisingly banal. I just felt like your usual World War I historical fiction by a woman, I think part of the problem with this book was the narrator, whose chirpy enthusiasm, undercut the seriousness of the main character, and made it difficult to think of her, as an intellectual, waiting to be welcomed into the world of intellectuals.