The Dictionary of Lost Words

Two books that I'm sure all of you will be familiar with.

The Dictionary of Lost Words, which was published in 2020, which was known as a COVID sensation because it was published into a vacuum where she wasn't able to do any events, any live events, and it just took off and did extraordinarily well.

It won a number of major awards, including the Avia General Fiction Book of the Year, It was shortlisted for the incredibly prestigious International Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.

It was chosen for the Reese Witherspoon Book Club, No Small Feet.

with The Bookbinder of Jericho, which was published in 2023.

It, too, won the Avia, and I should explain, that's the Australian Book Industry Awards General Fiction Award in 2024, and it was the Booktopia Book of the Year.

It was shortlisted for a number of other awards, and news is out this week that the same team who made The Dictionary of Lost Words into a play is making The Bookbinder of Jericho into a play.

APPLAUSE Thank you.

So what's the third book you'd like to talk to us about?

The third book is The Dictionary of Lost Words.

By Pip Williams.

By

I really loved being in that Oxford kind of world.

And just, again, in a world I'd never really experienced or really never imagined.

And so when I got to the Dictionary of Lost Words, I really, I already had a context which was provided.

And then...

And then finally for that season in September and October is The Bookbinder at Jericho, which is based on Pip Williams' bestselling novel.

She's a a local writer and has had some real success with her other novel is The Dictionary of Lost Words, which was also adapted for the SAGE and audio described with Access to Arts.

So

yeah,

Rock star Tim Rogers, who's recently been in a stage production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, where he played Pozzo.

And here's taking on the latest from Pip Williams of the Dictionary of Lost Words fame and a new novel called The German Ward.

And best-selling novelist Madeleine Gray takes us to contemporary London and some, well, I think...

Quite awkward moments in the novel by Jem Calder.

This is ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf on air, on ABC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Cassie McCullough with Kate Evans and our reviewers today, performer, musician, legend Tim Rogers and novelist and superstar creative writing teacher Madeleine Gray.

And now we're turning to the latest from the internationally best-selling Australian writer, Pip Williams, whose novels include The Dictionary of Lost Words and The

Bookbinder of Jericho.

It is indeed.

Now, you might remember Pip Williams, who wrote the Dictionary of Lost Words, which was a huge, big global bestseller a couple of years ago, several years ago now.

So Pip is an Australian author, and the German ward features three females.

Isabel Ray, she was an Australian-born impressionist painter, a real-life person, so it's based on a very sort of on a kernel of fact, and then Pip goes and fictionalizes to great effect.

Loved, loved, loved, loved, loved.

Indeed.

Pip Williams was also a guest on the show about the Dictionary of Lost Words.

Listeners, remember you can always look up our interviews if you get a renewed interest for any reason.

That's basically the story behind Pip Williams' latest book, The German Ward.

It's an extension of the Pip Williams universe, if you will, her enormously successful and popular bestsellers, The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder of Jericho.

Readers might recognise the name Tilda from that second novel.

This time, though, Tilda is in focus as the protagonist, as independent and unconventional as ever.

My guest is author Pip Williams.

Her new book, The German Ward, has just been released this week.

Pip, is The German Ward the third act in your books, The Dictionary of Lost Words, The Bookbinder of Jericho, The German Ward, or are we going to get another in this Pip Williams universe?

I don't think it's a good idea to say never.

She was talking about her new book, The German Ward.

She's the author of The Dictionary of Lost Words, which was number seven on the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century list last year, one of my favorites, so it'll likely feature again on this one, I reckon.

So we'll include a link in the show notes for where you can put your vote in if you'd like to take part.

Yep.

And it was about...

the title of the book was The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams.

And it's a fiction book, but it was actually based on a lot of historical evidence about how particular words that were, you know, regularly used in real life ended up not being recorded, you know, for the dictionary and not being institutionalized.

And so, so some of my, you know, my, my, like what I'm really passionate about now is starting, you know, realizing that like, I feel like I've done a lot of work and many other people that I've worked with, so many people doing great work in this space, have moved things forward with awareness.