The liar's dictionary : a novel / Eley Williams.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Doubleday, [2020]Edition: First United States editionDescription: 270 pages ; 22 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780385546775
- 0385546777
- 9780593311868
- 0593311868
- 9781785152047
- 1785152041
- Lexicographers -- Fiction
- Encyclopedias and dictionaries -- Fiction
- Truthfulness and falsehood -- Fiction
- English language -- Etymology -- Fiction
- Unrequited love -- Fiction
- Coming out (Sexual orientation) -- Fiction
- Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) -- Fiction
- Threats of violence -- Fiction
- Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Fiction
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | WILLIAMS ELEY | Available | 33111010451082 | ||||
|
Adult Book
|
Northport Library | Fiction | WILLIAMS ELEY | Available | 33111008983344 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER * "You wouldn't expect a comic novel about a dictionary to be a thriller too, but this one is. In fact, [it] is also a mystery, love story (two of them) and cliffhanging melodrama." -- The New York Times Book Review
An award-winning novel that chronicles the charming misadventures of a lovelorn Victorian lexicographer and the young woman put on his trail a century later to root out his misdeeds while confronting questions of her own sexuality and place in the world.
Mountweazel n. the phenomenon of false entries within dictionaries and works of reference. Often used as a safeguard against copyright infringement.
In the final year of the nineteenth century, Peter Winceworth is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby's multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary . But his disaffection with his colleagues compels him to assert some individual purpose and artistic freedom, and he begins inserting unauthorized, fictitious entries. In the present day, Mallory, the publisher's young intern, starts to uncover these mountweazels in the process of digitization and through them senses their creator's motivations, hopes, and desires. More pressingly, she's also been contending with a threatening, anonymous caller who wants Swansby's staff to "burn in hell." As these two narratives coalesce, Winceworth and Mallory, separated by one hundred years, must discover how to negotiate the complexities of life's often untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, and undefinable path. An exhilarating, laugh-out-loud debut, The Liar's Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language while peering into questions of identity and finding one's place in the world.
"Peter Winceworth, a disaffected Victorian lexicographer, inserts false entries into a dictionary - violating and subverting the dictionary's authority - in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom. In the present day, Mallory, a young overworked and underpaid intern employed by the dictionary's publishing house, is tasked with uncovering these entries before the work is digitized. As the novel progresses and their narratives combine, as Winceworth imagines who will find his fictional words in an unknown future and Mallory discovers more about the anonymous lexicographer's life through the clues left in his fictitious entries, both discover how they might negotiate the complexities of an absurd, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, undefinable life. Braiding together contemporary and historical narratives, the novel explores themes of trust, agency and creativity, celebrating the rigidity, fragility and absurdity of language."--Provided by publisher.