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The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

Historical fiction

The Bookbinder

by Pip Williams

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Quick take

Refusing to be cowed by the expectations of her gender and class, a young woman hungry for knowledge finds her own way.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, 400

    400+ pages

  • Illustrated icon, Book_About_Books

    Book about books

  • Illustrated icon, War

    War

  • Illustrated icon, Siblings

    Siblings

Synopsis

It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrowboat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press.

Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them—but as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford’s Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding in the company of the other bindery girls. She is extraordinary but vulnerable, and Peggy feels compelled to watch over her.

Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters’ lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can educate herself and use her intellect, not just her hands. But as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier—and the responsibility that comes with it—threaten to hold her back.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Bookbinder.

The Bookbinder

Before

Scraps. That’s all I got. Fragments that made no sense without the words before or the words after.

We were folding The Complete Works of William Shakespeare and I’d scanned the first page of the editor’s preface a hundred times. The last line on the page rang in my mind, incomplete and teasing. I have only ventured to deviate where it seemed to me that

Ventured to deviate. My eye caught the phrase each time I folded a section.

Where it seemed to me that

That what? I thought. Then I’d start on another sheet.

First fold: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Second fold: Edited by WJ Craig. Third fold: ventured to bloody deviate.

My hand hovered as I read that last line and tried to guess at the rest.

WJ Craig changed Shakespeare, I thought. Where it seemed to him that …

I grew desperate to know.

I glanced around the bindery, along the folding bench piled with quires of sheets and folded sections. I looked at Maude.

She couldn’t care less about the words on the page. I could hear her humming a little tune, each fold marking time like the second hand of a clock. Folding was her favourite job, and she could fold better than anyone, but that didn’t stop mistakes. Folding tangents, Ma used to call them. Folds of her own design and purpose. From the corner of my eye, I’d sense a change in rhythm. It was easy enough to reach over, stay her hand. She understood. She wasn’t simple, despite what people thought. And if I missed the signs? Well, a section ruined. It could happen to any of us with the slip of a bonefolder. But we’d notice. We’d put the damaged section aside. My sister never did. And so I had to.

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Why I love it

I am enchanted with books about books, stories about the power of story, and tales that reveal the lost narratives of women in places we don’t expect. Pip Williams seems to understand these loves of mine. In her engaging new novel The Bookbinder, she introduces us to Peggy and her vulnerable twin sister Maude, who live on a narrowboat across from Port Meadow in Oxford. Peggy’s wise intellect and captivating prose carry us into the fascinating bookbinding world of The Press during a war that changes a country and its people.

For Peggy, there is a particular agony in touching the typed pages that she folds and sews while being forbidden to indulge in the fullness of the text. Damaged books taken from the bindery to fill their boat, The Calliope, form the only library Peggy may ever enter. Bound by circumstance and duty, a life of literature and education like the one she sees in the Somerville students across the plaza from The Press is meant for other women, but not for her. But when the war arrives in Oxford, men from The Press are sent away, unlikely friendships form, and life unravels as Peggy finally faces her hidden desires.

I was absolutely enthralled by the lush world of 1900s Oxford and the ancient art of bookbinding. With unforgettable characters and a rich landscape, The Bookbinder is an immersive read I didn’t put down until I let out a long sigh on the last page.

Member ratings (1,823)

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Historical fiction
View all
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
The Women
The Lion Women of Tehran
Husbands & Lovers
Shelterwood
A Thousand Times Before
All We Were Promised
Spitting Gold
The Seventh Veil of Salome
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Great Divide
The Storm We Made
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard
Lessons in Chemistry
The Frozen River
What We Kept to Ourselves
Take My Hand
The Last Russian Doll
The First Ladies
The House Is On Fire
River Sing Me Home
The Attic Child
Malibu Rising
The Book of Longings
Hester
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
The Nightingale
Daisy Jones & The Six
The Lincoln Highway
The Secret Book of Flora Lea
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
The Circus Train
Peach Blossom Spring
Hang the Moon
Booth
The Good Left Undone
The Perishing
The Postmistress of Paris
The Family
Things We Lost to the Water
The Spectacular
Still Life
Send for Me
The Magnolia Palace
The Bookbinder
China Room
This Tender Land
Atomic Love
All the Light We Cannot See
The Vanishing Half
Outlawed
The Four Winds
Independence
The Fountains of Silence
Libertie
Queen of Thieves
The Great Believers
The Clockmaker's Daughter
A Gentleman in Moscow
The Great Alone
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
The Heart’s Invisible Furies
Rules of Civility
Circling the Sun
The Moor's Account
Jacqueline in Paris
Don't Cry for Me
The Christie Affair
Bloomsbury Girls
The Wedding Dress Sewing Circle
Bronze Drum