This was a great book! I very much enjoyed it and I look forward to reading the author’s next work! Thanks to NetGalley for the review copy.

I thought this book would be a really fun and interesting read, but it fell a little short for me. I had a hard time continuing to pick it up. It's perhaps best suited for those really, really interested in dictionary history.

Hello, I didn't manage to place this with a publication, but I really enjoyed the book. Thank you for approving me to read it.

Former OED editor Sarah Ogilvie takes a look at the numerous contributors who helped make the Oxford English Dictionary possible. From the primary editor James Murray to the many readers who read texts and submitted slips, it took a variety of people from many backgrounds and all around the world to help the dictionary get published. Each chapter starts with a letter in alphabetical order and focuses on a specific group of people delving into their lives and how they contributed to the dictionary. Overall, a fascinating look at the people behind the dictionary. At times it does meander as there is a lot of content to cover, but it is very well-researched and there's a lot to learn about.

Thank you Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, Knopf for access to this arc.

So far this is a fascinating book. Written by a former OED editor it covers many of the hundreds of people who took the time – or not in the case of those who never sent in their slips – to read books and enrich the Oxford English Dictionary. The volunteers were from all over the world, from all ranks of life, women and men, rich and poor, famous and obscure. Right now I’m halfway through and just finishing up Chapter M – which covers two of the murderers and revisits one mentioned in another chapter. This is a perfect book for word lovers as well as people who enjoy those bizarre tidbits about their fellow humans. Dip into a few chapters at a time as I am and stock up on dinner party trivia. The English language is such a wild mish-mash, why wouldn’t people who helped create this wonderful dictionary be any different?

This isn't a page-turner- I liked it a bunch- but it's a slow read. With one chapter for every letter of the alphabet (clever), I was hooked from the get-go.

With everything being online these days, it's easy to forget that the first English dictionaries had to be compiled by hand by incredibly smart people. This book is a niche history, but fascinating to think about.

(review for Booklist) For proof that crowdsourcing is not a new concept, consider the Oxford English Dictionary. A call for examples of word use went out in 1858. In the 70 years it took to complete the first edition over 3000 volunteers from around the world mailed in hundreds of thousands of contributions and became known as Readers. Using the archival address books and correspondence of James Murray, who spearheaded the OED for 36 years, Ogilvie, a linguist at University of Oxford, gives these generally unsung and unpaid contributors their moment in the spotlight. They come to life in chapters from A (for Archaeologists) to Z (for Zealots), full of determination and eccentricity. Each chapter provides additional insight into the trials, tribulations, and successes of James Murray (also the subject of Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman) as he wrangled his Readers, paid staff, and the board of Oxford University Press to bring this massive project describing English language usage worldwide to fruition. Ogilvie’s enthusiasm for these people who, as Murray wrote, “from unselfish devotion and service to that language, have labored in the cause of the Dictionary,” is infectious and this book is a delight to read.

I should have loved Sarah Ogilvie's The Dictionary People. Described as a sort of intersection between social history, language, and lexicography--three topics that I personally geek out over--this should have been an auto-recommendation, must-buy, five-star book for me. Alas, it was not.

Before I summarize my primary disappointments with the book, I do have to acknowledge its strengths and give well-earned kudos to the author. She has amassed an impressive collection of research, her dedication to and enthusiasm for the project are obvious from start to finish, and her writing style is accessible and can be quite engaging.

Despite these strengths, The Dictionary People lacks a clear focus (I'm sorry, but 'honor 3,000 people is not a focus), the author's enthusiasm is simply not enough to carry all 26 chapters, and despite glimpses of excellent storytelling and engaging prose, my overall impression is that this book is disappointingly tedious and dull. There were too many instances where the author's speculation or supposition led her to make questionable connections and demonstrate poor analysis. For example, in the chapter titled 'L for Lunatics,' in which we read about contributors with any connection to asylums, Ogilvie asks, "Was it their madness that drove them to do so much Dictionary work, or was it the Dictionary work that drove them mad?"

Has no one ever reminded her that correlation does not equal causation?

Other questionable connections show through when she repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) tries to connect a contributor's profession, hobby, or illness to the books they cited or the words they submitted.

The twenty-six chapters, one for each letter of the alphabet, are Dictionary appropriate, maybe even clever, but the format repeatedly seems to back the author into a corner. Chapter-specific content often seems forced, only loosely connected, and/or too broad to be meaningful or interesting. There is also no real consistency regarding how each chapter is approached. Some include fairly long passages that read much like a research memoir (which would be fine if this were, in fact, a research memoir--spoiler: IT'S NOT). Others, like 'Q for Queers,' focus almost as much on the timeline of OED inclusion for subject-specific terminology as on the lives of specific contributors. The impression is too often that of an eager student writing a report, intent on cramming everything she learned, regardless of whether or not it addresses the thesis.

By attempting to honor all manner of OED contributors, Ogilvie is perhaps trying to do too much in one non-scholarly volume. A narrower focus--for example, on just the female contributors or on the role of clubs and societies--could have made The Dictionary People both more interesting to general readers and more useful to future researchers. Alas.