#The Bookbinder of Jericho

[formerlyknownas-delight]

By pure chance I came across The Bookbinder of Jericho in a bookstore and - being a traditionally trained bookbinder myself - I of course had to take it home.

Now I'm 150 pages into the story of a female bookbinder in Oxford during the start of World War 1, and I have to say I'm really impressed how well the craft is represented. The author clearly did her research! On top of that I'm learning quite a bit about the war, working women's lives and British society in the 1910s.

I can absolutely recommend this and already read a couple of my favourite passages to my colleagues at the workshop ☺️

[elliepassmore]

The Bookbinder review

5/5 stars Recommended if you like: history, historical fiction, women's stories, WWI

The Dictionary of Lost Words review This is a great companion to Dictionary of Lost Words, though both could be read as a standalone without there being any issues. Tilda features fairly prominently in this book and we do see Gareth and a brief cameo of Esme. I liked getting to see familiar characters, even if Gareth + Esme's story drove home the tragedy in a different way. I especially liked seeing Women's Words and how much it impacted Peggy! This book picks up around the start of WWI and pretty much follow the course of the war, with a couple chapters taking place afterward and depicting the experience of recovery. The Belgian refugees play a big part of Peggy's story, as well as that of her twin sister, Maude. They forge different connections to the newcomers, but each finds their lives transformed by those relationships. The Spanish Flu also comes in and we get to see how it impacts things at the Bindery as well as Peggy and Maude's lives more personally. It was definitely interesting to see Peggy's struggles getting into Oxford. As a woman who did get into Oxford (graduate school, and Pembroke, not Somerville; also I declined admissions, lol), it was strange to read about all the hoops Peggy had to jump through just to be able to secure her spot. Not just one test, but two, with "Ancient bloody Greek" as one of the subjects, is quite a bit just to get in and study English lit. I really liked how Williams made this a commentary on barriers to entry and how Peggy was able to recognize that the entry exams were just another way to prevent non-aristocratic women from being able to reach for the kind of education offered at Oxford. Oxford's difficult admissions process also ties into the suffragette movement. I didn't know that when Britain passed the law to allow women to vote that it only included certain women and only at the age of 30. Tilda is more closely tied to Peggy and Maude due to her romantic relationship with their late mother and so Peggy has much closer view of the suffragette movement than Esme did. Peggy supports suffrage but also sees the injustice of the bill being pushed prior to/during WWI and how it connects to her own struggles to get into Oxford. Peggy also recognizes how unfair the bill is to the women around her in the Bindery and at home who also don't have a higher education and aren't looking to get into Oxford. Peggy is an interesting character to follow. She's worked at Clarendon Press as a bindery girl since she was ~12, though she dreams of being a Gown in Somerville, Oxford's women's college. She also feels a great responsibility for her twin sister, Maude, who is autistic and communicates through a kind of echolalia. When the war breaks out, Peggy feels she needs to do something and so volunteers to help with the Belgian refugees being housed in Oxford. She comes to enjoy her work and what she feels is freedom from watching over Maude. Peggy clearly has a big heart and big dreams, and she's acutely feels the barriers preventing her from reaching her goals. I liked that Williams made it clear that Peggy loved Maude, but that at times she wishes her twin could be more self-sufficient. At the same time, Peggy gets very jealous when someone new comes into Maude's life and begins caring for her in the way Peggy is used to. It's definitely a real thing that happens with sibling pairs where one sibling requires more accommodations and care, and even though I didn't always agree/like Peggy's thoughts about Maude, it did show a realistic way of coping and helped to show both Peggy's and Maude's growth over the course of the book. There were so many people supporting Peggy throughout her journey. Maude is a big supporter, even if Peggy doesn't always recognize it, and Mrs. Stoddard, the head supervisor of the women's section of the Bindery, is another person who greatly champions Peggy. Gwen, a Somerville student Peggy meets volunteering, may be ditzy and doesn't always see her own privilege, but she does introduce Peggy to important Somerillian people and she goes to bat for Peggy and pulls some strings to make it clear to some of the Somerville leaders that Peggy would be a good candidate for both admissions and a scholarship, both of which do open doors for her. I liked how much community was present in this book and how much the women supported each other. Maude may use echolalia to communicate, but she is very observant and good at reading people. She's particularly good at understanding the things people do vs. don't want to talk about and is a comforting influence to one of the Belgian women. Maude also seems to understand just how much Peggy needs her and for the most part is able to accept that role. She's very supportive of Peggy's dreams and I liked seeing them reverse roles when Peggy was studying for the Oxford entrance exams. Instead of Peggy making sure Maude got food and got outside, it was Maude making sure Peggy ate and didn't burn herself out. I enjoyed seeing Maude get the chance to grow into the person she was. Lotte is one of the Belgian refugees and quickly bonds with Maude. Shortly after her arrival she and a few other women begin working at the Bindery and Lotte is paired up with Peggy and Maude, though it's clear from the start she prefers Maude. Lotte's story is a sad one, and while she opens up to Maude pretty easily, it takes her much longer to open up to Peggy, and seemingly only through a 3rd party. She struggles with what happened in Belgium throughout the book and and there are some moments when her PTSD flares. Bastiaan is a Belgian soldier injured during the German invasion. He's one of the soldiers Peggy helps in her volunteer work and the two of them become friends, and then more, during that time. Bastiaan is another person who supports Peggy's dreams and he seems to understand Maude as well. I liked Bastiaan's mannerisms and how gentle he was. Like Lotte, Bastiaan is also dealing with ghosts and struggles with what happened before they were evacuated to England, particularly since he sees himself as someone who should've been able to protect Belgium and its people. I liked Bastiaan and Peggy together. They're able to open up to each other in a way they can't to others, and I liked seeing how they helped each other and how they grew together. Their relationship also shows the struggle and balance that women had to face between education and a career vs. romantic love and a family, particularly if the women were lower class and didn't have family money to fall back on. Peggy loves Bastiaan, but she also wants more out of life. Bastiaan also loves Peggy, but he knows his future isn't in Engand. Thus, they reach something of an impasse. Despite that, their relationship ends the story on a positive and hopeful note (I suspect it's long-distance, though Williams doesn't say explicitly) and I can definitely see them finding a good middle ground where Peggy can have her career and Bastiaan can have his. Tilda, as mentioned, also shows up in this one, though she's more present in letters than in person due to her being in the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) and deployed to France. It's clear how much Tilda cares for Peggy and Maude, and as the book unfolds it becomes clear that Tilda and the girls' mom were romantically involved and that Tilda played a big role in the girls' lives. It was nice to see them together as a family, and I liked seeing how Tilda was with Peggy and Maude. I also think it was clever to include Tilda's letters at the end of some of the chapters so that we could get an inside view into what things were like in France. Williams does not pack her punches and Tilda's letters make the brutality and tragedy of the war even more clear than Peggy's own experiences volunteering do. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and getting to see things through Peggy's eyes. I think Esme's story packed a more emotional punch than Peggy's, but I still felt deeply for the people in this story and the circumstances that brought them together. The book ends on a happy note and the characters (mostly) seem satisfied with where they've ended up.

[joebloggshere]

The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

I love the title of this book which was why I picked it from the NetGalley offerings but didn’t know anything else about it, or what to expect.

What a lovely surprise, Pip Williams has recreated the world of the separated “Town and Gown’ lives in Oxford before and during the First World War wonderfully.  A world inhabited by books and words whichever side of the tracks you are from.

Filled with suffragettes and debutantes and women who work in the Jericho book bindery as well as the men there who go off to war, and those that can’t. 

Recommended.

Courtesy of NetGalley.  

[amorinarose]

Chilling with Books Corner May 2023, Julia Blake, long roads and hiccups

May came and went far too quickly. I have been caught up with editing and so many other things. The result is I am blogging later than I intended despite a promise to myself about maintaining a routine. Unfortunately, hiccups come at the oddest times and if you let them upset you they take forever to disappear. Everything becomes a long road to travel. The truth is I didn’t seem to accomplish…

[annafromuni]

My June Reading Summary

Overall mood: immersed. I have finally been bit by the reading bug and the symptoms have lasted weeks. I missed reading this much. While I’ve been busy with final paperwork and applications this month, I have had plenty of time to read and dive into stories again which has made all the writing so much easier. While not all the books are favourites, nor are they books I would read again soon, I…

[mrkoppa]

12 December 2023 | Oxford 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Walking tour of Jericho.

[tigerfush]

“Nothing is objective, nothing is without flaw or opinion. They’re incredibly human. And what I hadn’t realised until I’d written The Bookbinder of Jericho, was the amount of craft and skill that goes into the book that I hold in my hand.

“The book itself wouldn’t be in my hand unless there were these skilled people behind it; the actual making of a book is an extraordinary thing. And every single book on this shelf has had humans involved that I had never given a second thought to. This book, really, is me giving that second thought.”

[kallasilya22]

Wonderlust.

My happy place is when you encounter a random author for the first time at your local Writer's Festival a few months ago, and you really like the way they speak about their work, so you buy their YA novel at the bookstore after the session and you read it and you love it, because it reminds you what reading Australian YA is all about.

And then you move on to reading other novels, novels about studying English Lit at university, even, and while you happen to be reading these other novels you polish off the rest of yesterday's bottle of red wine and then you sit down at your writing desk and you're meant to be diligently scribing something to do with your list of #100 writing prompts to re-build your writing muscles, like doing reps at the gym, but instead, you flip back in the notebook which you had taken with you to the Writer's Festival, and you find your notes from the session where you first encountered the YA author, and you realise that the first thing you scribbled down after the author's name was the fact that they wrote a PhD on the subject of wonder. And you remember how you thought to yourself at the time that gosh dang it you are a librarian from a university and tracking down a thesis should be the easiest thing in the world.

Within two google searches and no more than 25 seconds I had downloaded:

Betts, A. (2018). Rogue: A Novel - and - Wonderlust: the value of wonder for readers, writers, and The Vault: A critical essay. Edith Cowan University. Retrieved from https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/2122

Upon opening the PDF file I looked breathlessly at the page count: 92.

Oh, I wiggled so happily in my seat. It's like sitting down to a 9-course banquet.

When I was at university I used to read stuff like this for breakfast. Recently I have missed eating nourishing brain food. I used to look at the titles of books in the library and absolutely revel in the most esoteric of literary analyses; the stranger the better, like an indulgent and particularly wordy Dionysus.

Wonderlust. The lust for wonder. I'm down bad with it and I never want to recover.

[discoveredreality]

intro post <3

don't mind me editing this like every single day lol

my dm's and askbox is always open if u want to talk <3

anons are welcome too <3

also if u want to make new friends i am right here pls say hi im fucking lonely😭

anyways

BELOVED MOOTS <33333 (everyone is tagging them and this is fun)

this in no particular order just whoever pops up on my dash or smth idk. not every moots just the ones i actually know lol. ok so

@im-ur-sleep-paralysis-demon THEY'RE AMAZING LOVE THEM SM IF U DON'T FUCK OFF BECAUSE OMG KJHLGJKFJHLKYFJHKJGL

@ma-lan13 HELP MY BESTIE IRL GOT TUMBLR OMG OMG. AND SHES ACTUALLY USING IT WTF?????? ANYWAYS SHES THE BEST <333

@bloophasarrived SHE'S THE SWEETEST AND SO WONDERFUL. HER PERSONALITY SPARKLES AND OMG SHE'S SO FUN AHHH

@marylily-my-beloved I LOVE HERRR WE HAVE THE BEST CONVERSATIONS. SO NICE AND EASY TO TALK TO. AND WHY DOES SHE KNOW ME SO WELL <3333

@im-just-here4853 my vent buddy omg we just vent to each other i love her so much idk what i would do without her <33

@im-on-crack-send-help TWINNING IN LITERALLY EVERYTHING. SAME MUSIC TASTE. SAME TASTE IN FOOD. IN DRINKS. IN THE WAY WE THINK. WTF. ANYWAYS SHE'S MY POOKIE I LOVE HER <333

@the-gay-skeleton-in-ur-closet THEY'RE THE BEST OMGGGGG and they're nice and cool and shit <333333 i'm quoting myself it's fine AND LIKE SO NICE AND GOOFY AND EVERYTHING OMG

@cubemagnet somene i met on a random post and now we occasionally team up to correct grammar lol 🤓🤓🤓 anyways she's amazing :D and everything she says is so iconic like isjflsrijglruhglsuglijrsg

@book-girl4eva SHE'S AMAZINGGGGG. IT'S SO EASY TO GOOF AROUND W HER I LOVE IT. SHE ALWAYS SLAYS SO HARD. EVERYTHING ABOUT HER SLAYS. idk if you'll see this but this is for u pookie <3

@mil-pinterest-sss-here-i-am ??? questioning why we're moots. but he's literally so nice. literally will be my therapist and help me w maths because that shit is impossible 😭

@dandelionflowery omg literally so kind and everything all the time. so fun fun reading their fics and doing shit together omg

@sweetwarmcookies16 OMG RIJGDJFGIJFGIF THE BEST I LOVE PLAYING GAMES TOGETHER AND TALKING AND EVERYTHING. ALSO AN AMAZING WRITER

idk brain isnt braining ill add ppl as i go along

moodboards made by my lovely lovely moots <3

so far i only have one here cause i forgot to link the previous ones whoops 😭😭😭

about me

i'm ari. she/her. nicknames welcome. go wild. dude/bro/girl/literally anything is also fine. i use 'lol' and '<3' too much. minor. literally the biggest procrastinator and so disorganised i dare u to find someone worse than me. i'm indian but i live in australia. bengali/north indian idk. band kid :D my pinterest is here. PLEASE DM ME IF U WANT TO. I NEED FRIENDS. IM AWKWARD AND BAD AT MAKING CONVERSATION BUT STILL PLS 😭😭😭

personality/star sign or whatever

according to the mbti test here i am an istp-t. i am also a cancer. i found out my sun, moon and rising signs and the marauders version and i wrote it down and lost it so then i redid it and i lost it again so i can't bother at this point someone help me :(

time zone

Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) i think?? SUCK ON THAT AMERICANS AND WHOEVER ELSE EHHEHEHHEHE ;LSDJFSFJIJFDJF;LJ

my music taste

i love taylor swift, conan gray, olivia rodrigo, sabrina carpenter and honestly a lot of other stuff lol. also love bollywood music.

favourite books and authors

i love reading and i'm usually a really fast reader lol. i love harry potter (fuck jkr tho), kotlc, chetan bhagat books, the inheritance games, agggtm, literally all of karen m. mcmanus's books, the divergent series, pjo and hoo, lorien legacies, the selection, powerless, soc, girl in pieces, dictionary of lost words and bookbinder of jericho, all the books by amish, and a bunch of other books.

dni

idk the usual?? if u think ppl arent valid or you're literally an asshole. honestly you all can go get stuffed. idgaf

tag games and shit

yes you can absolutely tag me. i love tag games and chain asks. sometimes i may not get to doing it but i usually will and it makes me so happy when i'm tagged lol

tags

i don't post that much stuff so i don't really have mulitple tags for my posts. anything or any shitposting or thoughts will be tagged #ari's shit. for asks it's #ari gets an ask?

fandoms!

i'm literally obsessed with drarry but i'm mostly part of the marauders fandom. i'm starting to make my way through all of the marauders fics. i love love love hermitcraft. i'm an ethogirl literally who doesn't love etho?? also really into trafficblr. i literally love six of crows so much like omg. desperately trying to get through the magnus archives im only 8 years late haha i also love kotlc sm. (team foster-keefe forever!) i'm low-key in love with keefe sencen cause omg. aaaand also a bunch of other shit but those are the main ones idk bro

i'm bored and this is too long already might as well add more so here are a bunch of userboxes :D

and that's all not because i have self control but because there is a limit to images per post 😭😭😭 i literally had to delete some of my aesthetic images for this soooo

all the above photos are not mine, i got them off of pintrest.

my profile pic is obviously from the makowka picrew here

the beautiful dividers are linked here. these are by @saradika-graphics she is a literal star these dividers are so good

IK THIS IS WAY TOO FUCKING LONG AND I KEEP ON ADDING SHIT MORE SHIT SO IF U ACTUALLY LIKE READ TO THE BOTTOM THIS HERE IS FOR U LMFAO ILYSM <333333

[sleepy-vix]

i just went to the thrift store and picked up 8 books for $3-4 and guess what?? i found THE LITTLE FRIEND by DONNA MFING TARTT.

for $4. that's insane. i am mindblown.

also, i got 'everything i know about love' by dolly alderton (which has been on my list for a long time)- for $3

other books i got were:

the archive of the forgotten ($3)

the thursday murder club ($3)

remainders of the day ($3)

the bookbinder of jericho ($4)

the brightesr star ($4)

i also got a dull blue tote bag ($5)

[saintbeckett]

A bit bound up.

I bought text block sheets of the “Bookbinder of Jericho.” The paper wasn’t the best, so I just did a basic case bound. But I made my own cover and endpapers. I suppose I should read it now.

[lengthy-artery]

got tagged by @gyunikum to do a little tag game so here goes!

Last song: Roll Northumbria (Longest Johns cover)

Last movie: oh boy great question. I genuinely think it was the new indiana jones film? i don't watch movies very often

Currently reading: I have literally just started reading Killingly by Katharine Beutner (as in I'm about two pages in), but before that I was reading The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams (very good, highly recommend!)

Currently craving: brownies from this one dessert place. also a break. also also to get to one really cool bit in my dnd campaign that we didnt have time for last session >:)

tagging: oh man just whoever. if you want to do this just say that i tagged you! also @essayofthoughts because she's where tag games go to die (her words not mine)

[theopenbook]

The Oxford Trilogy, Part One: The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams

Our first stop on the Oxford Tour is the year 1914, as described by Pip Williams in her novel The Bookbinder of Jericho. It is about the First World War, but instead of focusing on the men in the trenches, she shows us the lives of the women, who had to fight their own battles. Do you want to know which ones? Read on! The Bookbinder of Jericho is about Peggy Jones, a bookbinder at the Oxford…

[alexanderslists]

Books 2024

Total: 22 January 01. Stalking Jack the Ripper, by Kerri Maniscalco 02. A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J. Maas 03. A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas

February 04. A Court of Wings and Ruin, by Sarah J. Maas 05. A Court of Frost and Starlight, by Sarah J. Maas 06. A Court of Silver Flames, by Sarah J. Maas 07. Fool Me Once, by Harlan Coben 08. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

March 09. The Whistler, by John Grisham 10. The Judge's List, by John Grisham 11. Fall of Giants, by Ken Follet

April 12. Winter of the World, by Ken Follett 13. Edge of Eternity, by Ken Follett

May 14. A Nearly Normal Family, by M.T. Edvardsson 15. The Woman Inside, by M.T. Edvardsson 16. The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams June 17. The Bookbinder of Jericho, by Pip Williams

July 18. The Poet, by Michael Connelly

August 19. Mindhunter, by John Douglas & Mark Olshaker

October 20. The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly

November 21. None Of This is True, by Lisa Jewell 22. Fair Warning, by Michael Connelly

[annafromuni]

Pip Williams Does It Again in The Bookbinder of Jericho

As a huge fan of The Dictionary of Lost Words, I knew that I needed to get my hands on Pip Williams’ newest release, The Bookbinder of Jericho. Not only is it a companion novel to the dearly beloved novel, but it has it’s own story rich with descriptive language, heart-aching relationships, raw emotion and a complex internal battle for identity and purpose. As referenced in the blurb, The…

[manuscripts-dontburn]

Bookhaul October 2023

New Books:

The Group

Rywka's Diary: The Writings of a Jewish Girl from the Lodz Ghetto

Knížka o Babičce a její autorce

Emperor of Rome

The Bookbinder of Jericho

Herc

A Brilliant Night of Stars and Ice

The Arctic Fury

Secondhand Books:

The Pigeon

The Old Capital

Corelli's Mandolin

Cider with Rosie

Denn ich bin krank vor Liebe

The Glass-Blowers

Caleb's Crossing

Catherine Aragon

We

Infamous

Trouble

Harlem Shuffle

Life Among the Savages

Eva Braun: Life with Hitler

The Mad King: The Life and Times of Ludwig II of Bavaria

Whirlpools

Zoya

Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love

One Hundred Years of Solitude