Oxford in the early 1900's, the making of the Oxford English Dictionary, lexicography, women's suffrage, and WWI all come together in this charming re-imagining of the creation of the OED.
It's fiction, with some historical characters, and it's the story of (fictional) Esme who works on the Dictionary, along with some other very real but mostly unheralded women.
Esme realizes that many words that women use or that pertain to women are not being included in this monumental work and she begins to seek out and document as many of these words as she can find, including those known to the editors of the OED but left out because they are vulgar or obscene (whatever that means.)
It's a delightful read and full of interesting questions to ponder. No wonder it was a choice of Reese's Book Club.
