OutBook Book Club

The OutBook Book Club is supported by The Palm Springs Cultural Center and the Palm Springs Public Library. Selections are chosen by group members and highlight a mix of new LGBTQ+ releases and influential classics.

OutBook meets on the first Wednesday of the month in the upstairs VIP room at the Palm Springs Cultural Center
from 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. (PST). The book discussion starts at 7:00 p.m. (from 6:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. is a social mixer). To attend the OutBook Book Club on Zoom, please email book club coordinator Hubertus Zegers at hwzegers@gmail.com in advance of the meeting.

View other selections for the OutBook Book Club.

Most titles are available as Downloadable Audiobooks and/or eBooks from PSPL.

October 6, 2021

The Liar's Dictionary by Eley Williams

—An audacious, idiosyncratic dual love story about how language and people intersect and connect, and about how far we'll go to save what we're passionate about (NPR).

Peter Winceworth, Victorian lexicographer, is toiling away at the letter S for Swansby's multivolume Encyclopaedic Dictionary. His disaffection compels him to insert unauthorized fictitious entries into the dictionary in an attempt to assert some sense of individual purpose and artistic freedom.

In the present day, Mallory, a young intern employed by the publisher, is tasked with uncovering these mountweazels before the work is digitized. She also has to contend with threatening phone calls from an anonymous caller. Is the change in the definition of marriage really that upsetting? And does the caller really intend for the Swansby's staff to 'burn in hell'?

As these two narratives combine, both Winceworth and Mallory discover how they might negotiate the complexities of the often nonsensical, relentless, untrustworthy, hoax-strewn, and undefinable path we call life. An exhilarating debut novel from a formidably brilliant young writer, The Liar's Dictionary celebrates the rigidity, fragility, absurdity, and joy of language.

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