The Bookbinder is set during WWl about twin sisters, Peggy and Maude, who work as binders at the Oxford University Press. This is an interesting look at how society controlled who was allowed to seek a good education. Thanks to the author Pip Williams, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley. I received a complimentary copy of this ebook. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine for the opportunity to read and review this title prior to publication. I have not read The Dictionary of Lost Words yet, and I discovered while reading this that the novels are connected. This is a WW1 era story of the women who continued to run the Oxford University Press during the war, and specifically about twin sisters Maude and Peggy, who live on a narrowboat nearby. Peggy dreams to attending the local college, but she is tasked with caring for Maude, who has some cognitive disabilities. The writing is beautiful, and the book focuses more on the stories of Peggy, Maude, and their peers instead of a moving plot. I thought the story was compelling, especially around themes of whose stories get told and who gets to access those stories. However, I wished the book was tightened up a bit more - I was ready to be done! I do have her previous book on my stack for August, so I look forward to revisiting the people in this community. 3.5 stars.

A beautifully written novel which demonstrates the power of books. By day, Peggy works in the bindery of Oxford University Press; at night, she reads and lives among the books she isn’t allowed to read at work. Desperate for education and independence, somehow she has to finally make the decision between the duty to her sister, her love for her wounded Belgian soldier or her desire to pursue the education she wants desperately.

This is very good historical fiction, which I have come to expect from this author. I certainly respect the amount of research she did to insert herself into the period. It takes place during the First World War in Jericho, which is a suburb of Oxford, UK.

The main characters are Peggy and Maude, identical twins on the outside. But where Peggy is very smart, Maude has some type of learning impairment. They work side by side at the local book bindery as page folders, but Peggy learns to read the books instead of bind them. This is the same place where their mother worked before she died, leaving Peggy to look after Maude. The sisters live on a boat on the river.

As the war progresses, they are dragged into it in different ways. Many refugees come from Belgium, and Peggy helps nurse them back to health. There are many things going on at the time, and the author did such great research that I felt like I was in the middle of it. Some of the themes were: the atrocities of war, class struggles between the students of Oxford and the bindery employees on the other side of the street, the suffragette movement and inequality between men and women, the Spanish flu, and more.

The book immersed me in the time period. I looked up so many facts as I was reading, and she wasn’t off on any of them. The characters were enjoyable, and I learned a lot about bookbinding. Definitely worth the read!

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine Books for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an advance copy of this book! The following views and opinions are solely mine.


Books about books will forever be my favorite kind. There are some really amazing things in here that I loved:
1. The Dictionary of Lost Words is woven in, some characters overlap.
2. The war was such a great part of the story. The communicated loss, loving a refugee, opening up your home and heart to people you’ve never met…that was so well done. Pip really excels here.
3. I caught myself at a jaded moment in the book - midway when she faints in the bindery when people are starting to get sick with the flu, and I was like “ughhh of course she’s pregnant. Of COURSE we had to write this in.” IMAGINE MY SURPRISE WHEN SHE IS NOT! I was so happy to see what could only be described as a strong female lead. Peggy is her sister’s caretaker while still grieving her mother, going through the trauma of being part of the wartime efforts in her town, wanting SO MUCH MORE FOR HERSELF and being unable to go after it because of her economic status.

I felt so proud of Peggy in the end, and I truly loved the love story between her and Bastiaan. It was so unconventional for the time - she truly loves a man but knows she has to put herself first, and pursues the one thing and they STILL find their way to come back to each other…so beautiful.

Tilda. She will forever have my heart. How wonderfully whole and complex is she, even as a minor character? I love her storyline, her character arc, her complete human-ness.

Keep the tissues near, dear readers. This one is so incredibly…human.

The Bookbinder of Jericho revisits Clarendon Press where William's Lost Words(2020)was set. It's not a sequel but some of the same characters appear.
The main character is Peggy who, along with her twin sister Maude work the line that folds and gathers printed pages for Oxford University. Both have been employed at Clarendon since they left school at 12. In their 20s, they live on a narrowboat docked in the canal. Their deceased mother instilled a love of books and learning in her daughters and Peggy's greatest desire is to study at Oxford; highly unlikely since she has little formal education, no money and is not of the upper class. Maude is depicted as being on what is now called "the spectrum." Peggy feels responsible for her care. The possibility of Oxford opens when Peggy meets Gwen who is student at the university.
When WWI breaks out Peggy and Gwen volunteer to read to wounded soldiers housed in university buildings. Here she meets a disfigured Belgian soldier and a romance begins.
Eventually Peggy is forced to choose between scholarship and love.
The most interesting part of the book was the detail about bookbinding. Peggy seemed a driven but flat character while some of the secondary characters had more depth. There are a couple of seemingly obligatory sex scenes that add nothing to the plot. The horrors of war are compellingly presented.
For me the novel is a mixed bag - readable but not exceptional.
Thanks to Netgalley and Ballintine Books for the advanced readers copy.

The Bookbinder is another novel set in Oxford, about the work of the Oxford Press, and bookbinder women, told from the perspective of Peggy, a young woman who works in the bindery with her twin sister, Maude, following in the footsteps of their mother who also worked there before her untimely death. Peggy yearns for more, but due to the social structure of Oxford of the time, and the circumstances of her birth, she is unable to be anything more than a bookbinder girl, until WWI begins, and unexpectedly opens some new doors to her.

This book crosses path with the author's previous book, The Dictionary of Lost Words, and in my opinion would be better enjoyed for having read that book as well, but in all likelihood, it's not completely necessary to read it prior to reading this book. That said, overall, I enjoyed The Bookbinder just a smidge more than Lost Words. For me, I found Peggy's perspective and narrative immediately engrossing, and this novel moved at a faster pace. I enjoyed seeing the growth and character development Peggy, and her sister, underwent over the course of the novel. Initially Peggy is a cynical young woman, trapped in the book binder, but over time, as England changes, and she makes new social connections, a new path is opened to her that wouldn't otherwise have been available.

I was completely immersed in this novel and enjoyed it from start to finish. Peggy's ending was hopeful, but also realistic. Easy 4 stars for this book.

Thank you to Random House Ballantine and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

Interesting story of a woman during WW1 who works as a bookbinder but aspires to go to college and reads whatever she can get.

The Bookbinder isn’t exactly a sequel to The Dictionary of Lost Words, but it follows slightly in its footsteps. Peggy and Maude are twin sisters, but vastly different. Their now dead mother was a reader and encouraged Peggy’s curiosity. But Maude is slow and vulnerable, happy to fold paper into shapes. Both work for a book bindery of the Oxford University Press. Peggy steals the damaged works to take home to their narrowboat to read at night. She desires more from life, but feels obligated to look after Maude. She looks across at Somerville College, the women’s arm of Oxford University and imagines herself a “gown”, not a “town”.
The book takes place during WWI. Belgians arrive in Oxford from Lavain, the site of a brutal German massacre. One of those refugees is Lotte, who comes to work at the bindery and helps Peggy realize that Maude is not as helpless as Peggy thinks. Peggy also befriends Bastiaan, an injured Belgian soldier who comes to Oxford to recuperate.
Williams paints a detailed picture of life being forced to go on, despite the men mostly being called away. Women are offered opportunities to step into jobs previously denied. It was also a time when the distinction between the classes occasionally blurred, as when Peggy meets Gwen. But at the same time, Peggy has to remind Gwen that only Gwen will be allowed to vote. Or when a recovering officer still calls for Peggy to be removed from the officer’s ward and sent to help her own kind. As with the best historical fiction, Williams’s research allowed me to learn something while enjoying the story.
The writing makes it easy to imagine each detail, from the book crammed Calliope to the graceful dance of bookbinding to the field hospital in Etaples. The characters are all fully fleshed out, even the secondary characters.
The story is a heartwarming tale of growth and acting upon one’s dreams, of not giving up. But it’s also a story with horrible loss, given the twin demons of war and influenza. It’s a reminder that not all dreams can be achieved, that obtaining one might mean relinquishing others. And that peace will come with a cost, a reminder of what the women will once again be forced to give up. Lately, many of the books I’ve read deal with women as invisible beings and this continues that trend. That at the end, there will be no monuments to the women who toiled and sacrificed.
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House - Ballantine Books for an advance copy of this book.

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. This was a new author to me. I have her other book, The Dictionary of Lost Words, downloaded on my Kindle and plan to read it soon after reading this book. I love her characters--both the quiet ones and the flamboyant one--and she develops them throughout the book in a most believable way. I am a sucker for books about books and thank NetGalley and the publisher for introducing me to this author who I plan to read more of in the future. I also learned how books were originally bound when done by hand which was very interesting.

"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.

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."

Ah yes, the responsibilities of love that can hold you back. I know that all too well.

4/5
I picked this book up because I'm a sucker for any book about books. I love historical fiction too, so I couldn't resist the read.

Peggy is a solid main character. As an identical twin, she deals with many things in her dynamic with Maude. People assume initially they are quite alike, but they aren't. Actually, Maude is one of my favorite parts about this book. Pip Williams does such an excellent job of bringing vivacity and value to Maude even though she is different from most young women. Intellectual disabilities can be difficult to write about without creating a character that is a caricature or seems valueless. Rather, Maude is a delight.

I enjoyed a lot of the other side characters too, but I really just loved learning the history of bookbinding and the impact of World War 1 in the day to day lives of British citizens. It's obvious Williams did her research, and well researched and written books are my favorite to read.

*I received this ARC in exchange for my honest review, all views are my own.

As a pretty avid reader of historical fiction I very much enjoyed this story. Especially learning about the book binding process. The author clearly knows how that works and explains it to the reader well. The storyline and plot were great as well. I enjoyed all the characters and how they interacted. I would recommend this to a friend it was also a quick read which is even better.

I found this book fascinating, especially the actual art of bookbinding. Peggy is told to just fold and not read, but she wants access to all this knowledge. There are many themes and author does a wonderful job tying them all together. I couldn't put this book down.

The Bookbinder
Pip Williams
Pub Date August 1, 2023
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it for readers who like historical fiction, Women’s Fiction, and book history.
I loved this book and look forward to the next book Pip writes.
5 stars

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams is an excellent read! It combines all of my favorites: historical fiction, women's history, and book history. This tale of two sisters working at Oxford University Press during WWI had nicely developed characters and a great plot. Best of all were the descriptions of bookbinding and presswork in the early 20th century. Although I'm not an expert on the topic, I've taken some classes about it and everything in the book really captured what it would have been like to be a "town" resident working at the press. I highly recommend this book and look forward to more from Pip Williams!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an e-ARC; all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

“The Bookbinder of Jericho” is a historical fiction novel by Pip Williams. This book is set in England during WWI (aka “The Great War”). This book follows two sisters - Peggy and Maude - who work as bookbinders. Having read many books, I knew the printing process, but never game much thought to the actual binding and folding of the book to create it an actual book (opposed to a pile of papers). I found that side of the story to be rather fascinating and Ms. Williams did a great job explaining the process. Peggy is the main voice, but there is a delightful cast of other characters - from Tilda to Lotte, Jack to Eb, and Gwen to Bastiaan. If one has read Ms. William’s previous book “The Dictionary of Lost Words,” some of these names may be familiar [I haven’t but now I’m interested in doing so]. There’s a lot packed in this book - suffragettes, education opportunities, war, refugees, adapting to live during a war, class struggles, and assumptions. I found this to be a very moving book, as if Ms. Williams took care in crafting the scenes and choosing the precise words. At times I did find the pacing to be a bit slow, but as there’s so much information - sometimes a slow section was appreciated.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion.

Enjoyed the book. It was a quick read. Any book involving the selling, reading or publishing of books is a must read for me. I am a book nerd and take a chance snd read any book Im presented.

This one was just so good!!! Some I start and struggle to finish, but this one had me reading non stop from cover to cover.

The author has a great writing style. Descriptive characters and setting. Loved to story!

Recommend.

Fascinating historical fiction set in England during World War I. Revolves around women who folded book pages in preparation for binding.Good mix of characters and their unique personalities. Thanks to #NetGalley and TheBookbinder for advanced digital copy.

I really enjoyed this book. Our narrator Peggy is a bright, ambitious bindery worker during WWI. She works alongside Oxford University, but she is a Town and not a Gown. I find this time period very fascinating as the war, the pandemic, and the suffrage movement are all happening at once. We hear about all 3 in this book. There were many interesting characters, but my favorite was Peggy's twin sister Maude. She is written as someone on the spectrum, but I did not find her to be a caricature of such. I also really liked Bastiaan, the Belgian soldier severely injured during Germany's Belgian invasion. I did think the story was a bit long but worth it overall.

Thanks to Netgalley for the book to review.