Bought at the White Rose book cafe in Thirsk, my reader's group choice.

Many very interesting elements in this book: first of all the setting in Oxford, which was all so familiar as after graduation I worked in a bookshop on Walton Street and passed the the OUP every day - I also used the Radcliffe as a shortcut to work, picnicked by the bridge, know the pubs and streets of Jericho, and I did my shopping at the Covered Market. Also the compilation of the OED (I have read The Surgeon of Crowthorne), and the work of the typesetters. The interest in words and their multiple meanings. The growing awareness of women at the time of the suffragettes, the waste of the war, the plight of unmarried mothers (it always strikes me when I watch Long Lost Family that people are eager to find their birth mothers but seem rarely interested in their fathers). I was just sorry that the relationship between Esme and Gareth was so slow to develop.
Comparing with modern times, I am glad that women are becoming more free, even if not yet equal in many cases, and I regret that the English language is becoming poorer - how many more years will it be before no one knows what an adverb is?

lent to Janet and now returned to me.

This was on your wishlist in March; I hope you are still looking for it. If not, please journal then release elsewhere!

Thank you for granting my wish, over-the-moon🥰
I could never nab a copy from BWB, so have been coveting for a while now...