5 Novels About the Power and Importance of Words

There’s seldom a time when word choice is more important than when spinning a lie like your life depends on it. And in the case of Chant—the protagonist of Alexandra Rowland’s A CONSPIRACY OF TRUTHS—one wrong word could mean his swift execution. Chant is a member of an order made up of wandering storytellers, but when he’s arrested for witchcraft, he’s relegated to a cold jail cell in a far-off land. Unsure where he is or what’s happening around him, Chant must rely on his storytelling powers to position himself as a kind of bargaining chip between feuding rulers of a corrupt government. But the clock is ticking, and Chant must weave an intricate web of convincing words before those same rulers execute him for his “treasonous” acts in this backward land. It’s a powerful work of fiction that captures you from the very first page and keeps you captivated with every fantastical story that is spun.

For some, words and language are a lifelong career. Take Valerie Chesterfield, linguist extraordinaire, trained in long-forgotten Nordic languages. Seems impractical outside of the classroom, yes, but that’s only until the impossible happens. A fellow researcher in the Arctic appears to have discovered a young girl frozen in the ice who has been thawed out, alive, and is speaking a language unfamiliar to anyone on the ground. Almost immediately, Valerie is beckoned to the Arctic Circle to aid in the deconstruction of this language barrier. She jumps at the opportunity, but her motivation is twofold: of course she wants to communicate with this young girl, but she is also seeking answers in the supposed suicide of her climate scientist brother, who was reported to have walked off in subzero temperatures in Greenland’s barren coast. GIRL IN ICE is the account of this incredible frozen odyssey and shines a bright light on the universal language of being understood.

Language is one thing, but what about loving words so much that you dedicate your entire life to the dictionary? Shion Miura’s THE GREAT PASSAGE features Kohei Araki, a man devoted to the dictionary’s everlasting powers, having spent the last thirty-plus years of his life creating them for Gembu Books. But, alas, Kohei has reached his retirement age and is seeking a replacement who is as passionate as he is about the multiple meanings of words. Thankfully, he soon discovers Mitsuya Majime, a rare-book collector with an educational background in linguistics, buried deep in the publishing company’s sales department. Aided by his new mentor and other wordsmiths, Mitsuya is tasked with a single, very significant task: complete The Great Passage, a comprehensive guide of the Japanese language that spans nearly three thousand pages. In Miura’s beautiful writing, which is expertly translated, we embark upon a journey of human connection inspired by an original, unbreakable bond between man and language.

In Celeste Ng’s latest work, OUR MISSING HEARTS, language becomes a rallying cry in a dystopian future in which Asian Americans are distrusted by the government. The book’s protagonist, Bird Gardner, is twelve, living with his former linguist father who works at a local university library. If Bird knows one thing, it is not to ask about his mother, a Chinese American poet who disappeared almost three years ago. But when a letter arrives for Bird, he knows it's from his mother, Margaret, and with help from his sole friend, Sadie, he learns that she is the author of a poem protesting a law to “preserve American tradition.” Sadie, having been relocated from her own Asian parents, provides Bird the context to understand his mother’s decision to leave. But it seems she is looking to reconnect with Bird as her letter includes a cryptic drawing that launches him on a quest to find her. A story about the power of written art, Celeste Ng’s new work solidifies her place among the greatest writers of our generation and provides an eerie warning for an unjust future. 

Few love words as uniquely as librarians. And, as THE PARIS LIBRARY depicts, it is a profession that seemingly has the books to answer just about any question or solve any problem there is. For Odile Souchet, newly appointed library assistant at the American Library in Paris in 1939, the problem is that of an impending war and an evil force. When Nazis take over Paris and capture her brother, she seeks to join the fight, transporting books to Jewish patrons who are no longer allowed to visit the library. She and her fellow librarians survive the war but are met with betrayal. Meanwhile, in 1983 Montana, a lonely teen named Lily looks to distract herself from her mother’s illness by befriending her elderly next-door neighbor, Odile. Sharing a love of language, Lily and Odile become inseparable, with Odile sharing her incredible past and a dark secret that seemingly connects them. Perfect for book lovers and those who live in the library stacks, THE PARIS LIBRARY is the quintessential piece of fiction that embodies the power of the written word.