This February the Kepler’s Non-Fiction Book Club will be discussing The Dictionary People: The Unsung Heroes Who Created the Oxford English Dictionary.

About the Book: The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others. 

Of deep transgenerational and broad appeal, a thrilling literary detective story that, for the first time, unravels the mystery of the endlessly fascinating contributors the world over who, for over seventy years, helped to codify the way we read and write and speak. It was the greatest crowdsourcing endeavor in human history, the Wikipedia of its time.  

The Dictionary People is a celebration of words, language, and people, whose eccentricities and obsessions, triumphs, and failures enriched the English language.

You can order a copy of the book from Kepler’s here.

What is the Non-Fiction Book Club?

Kepler’s Non-Fiction Book Club has been meeting since 2010. We cover all non-fiction genres from soup to nuts. Our meetings are monthly and we meet at 7:30pm every first Tuesday of the month via google meets. We welcome new attendees, and book suggestions and we vote every three months on the books suggested. I hope you feel free to join in whenever the spirit moves you.- Sina Herkelrath book club coordinator.

If you would like to attend any Book Club events please reach out to Heather Birchall at events@keplers.org to receive the Google Meet link.