The Liar's Dictionary: A Novel

3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars | 1,345 ratings

Price: 13.78

Last update: 09-10-2024


About this item

National Best Seller

"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.


Top reviews from the United States

Janny Halperin
5.0 out of 5 stars For lovers of the English language and meanings
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2024
This book is written in such a clever and witty way. It really makes you wonder how words come to be while diving deep into the plot. Can't recommend it enough.
JAMINC
4.0 out of 5 stars Read this as a hard copy - not an audible book.
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2021
This was a really fun book for anyone who enjoys words for what they are. It was really fun to see the words (and sometimes their origin) and imagine them in this dictionary-writing workplace. The characters were fun and creative. The whole concept was fun. Read and Enjoy!
Nicole
3.0 out of 5 stars Wordy does not mean interesting or engaging
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2021
The word play was annoying and unnecessary and contrived. I’m not sure what the heroine’s lesbian Relationship had to do with anything either. All that was necessary to mention was that she was in love with a woman. I didn’t care about the heroine and her relationship… It was just not important to the story…I cared about her relationship with the publisher. I honestly did not find the heroine to be interesting and I developed little empathy for her. She was more narrator rather than an actual character. I would’ve liked to have seen a better exploration of the publisher’s past and motivation. The few witty, eloquent and poignant aspects were just drowned out by endless ruminations and word porn that made no sense and made the book dull instead of making it sparkle. The book was rushed at the end. The final aspects of the book could’ve been better explored , especially the intriguing ending (or beginning if you want to see it that way !) I thought this could have been a wonderful mystery boo with a twist, but the story got lost in the word play ... And wordplay is not a story. Instead, the first 2/3 were filled with unnecessary diatribe and thesaurus-thumping foliage you just wanted to cut through. Not impressed. I bought the other book Atrib and regretted it ... Same thick, heavy, dense subject matter, nothing to dig into. Much ado ... I good book should keep you engaged, thinking about the story or the concepts or possibilities for days on end. Instead I just think about how annoying and disappointed it was and having much more sympathy for the wayward publisher than any of the characters!
RnRDoggos
5.0 out of 5 stars Happy to have read the book. Either use a Kindle or have a dictionary handy.
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2021
I'm not sure what led to Amazon recommending that I read this book, but I'm glad it did. I love words and wordplay, so the setting for this novel was very appealing. Interesting juxtaposition of the 2 main characters' lives working at the same encyclopedic dictionary. I found myself highlighting new words and looking them up (easy to do on Kindle), so much so that I made myself to stop to just enjoy the journey, having promised myself that I would read it a second time to indulge my curiosity about particular words/etymologies/etc. Quick read if you don't launch Wikipedia every other page.
Teresa Freeman
4.0 out of 5 stars Charming, Disarming, Sweet
Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2022
For lovers of words and their sources. For connoisseurs of research. For the sweet, sweet realization of love.
I want those spare words and might just start my own illustrated dictionary.
kawata
3.0 out of 5 stars Admire the author's wit and erudition, but overall rather disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2021
As someone who likes words, I enjoyed this as light entertainment. I admire the author's wit and erudition, but overall rather disappointing. The major problem is that neither of the two main characters exudes any warmth or likability. The entire setup is rather amusing, but as others have noted, the plot and the ending are contrived and unappealing. Williams is a good writer, but she needs to develop characters, not parade a bunch of caricatures in front of us.
D. W. Hollis
5.0 out of 5 stars What a delight!
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2021
Am still working my way through this novel. (My fault as a slow reader, not a problem with the book itself!) I love it. Witty. Clever. Enjoyable. Great plot and subject. Quirky characters; the kind I wish I had written. Bravo!
Nancy Petralia
1.0 out of 5 stars Too clever by half
Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2022
I really should pay more attention to the reviews by magazines and news sources. Whenever professional critics bloviate about the wonders of a first novel, I should avoid it.

This book has no coherent story--or rather two non-coherent ones. The author delights in showing off for the purpose of proving how smart she is. Despite managing some gorgeous and original sentences, the book is full of overblown, wordy prose that contributes nothing to the story. The two stories are tied together only by the "mountweasels" created in one and searched for in the second. The ending (?) is empty. The book is the amalgam of two of those mountweasels:

"toblivious" (adj.) accidentally rereading a phrase or line due to lack of focus or desire to finish
"agrupt" (n. and adj.) irritation caused by having a denouement ruined

Ernest Hemingway where are you?

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