London, 1899. Peter Winceworth, a lexicographer by profession, is busy refining the definition of words beginning with the letter S for the Swansby Encyclopedic Dictionary, which is ironic considering that since he was a child he pretends to lisp, who he knows why, perhaps because he is contrary or simply bored. The fact is that Winceworth, to cope with his dull days, entertains himself by inventing words and definitions that accurately describe realities that have no name. Although now that he has met the beautiful and elusive Sophia, life promises to be anything but boring.

London today. Mallory is the timid intern at Swansby, a publishing house that to describe as "coming down" is frankly an understatement. In that imposing, deserted building, Mallory spends the hours performing the only two insane tasks David Swansby has given him: unmasking the scattered "dummy entries" in the dictionary (but who, when, why are those made-up words there? ) and answer the insistent phone calls of an anonymous subject (but who, how, why does this guy want everyone to burn in hell?). Luckily for Mallory, she has Pip in her life, who is not going to let anything bad happen to her.

As their stories progress, interweaving more than a century apart, Winceworth and Mallory will live their own love stories, they will be forced to live with themselves and, ultimately, they will have to negotiate the curves of that path that is almost always meaningless, unreliable, full of deceit and so difficult to define what we call "life". Very original first novel by a dazzling author, The Liar's Dictionary is a celebration of the rigor, fragility and absurdity of language and, above all, of the joy that words provide us.