Stay connected with other York alumni through our new virtual book club.
In this online community, alumni can enjoy books related to lifelong learning, social issues, literature, psychology, and other user-submitted ideas. There is no cost to participate – you just have to get a copy of the book to enjoy.
How it works: Book club members will connect through a private online forum where they can discuss the current book and network with each other. The group will spend two months on each book, so you'll have plenty of time to read. You can sign up and learn more at: www.pbc.guru/yorku
Why should you join? As a member, you will have an opportunity to both connect with fellow alumni and be part of a lifelong learning community!
Currently reading
The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip Williams (March - May)
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.
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