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Dictionary Stories: Inventive Illustrated Short Stories – A Funny Celebration of Language for Word People
A collection of very short stories composed entirely of example sentences from various dictionaries, perfect for fans of The Lover's Dictionary and The Interrogative Mood: A Novel?
“Dictionary Stories brings to literature the spirit of the musical mashup, digging in the crates to find old hooks and arrange them into new delights with an appeal that’s not merely academic but truly pop. This kind of work reminds us: it’s all there, love and disappointment and deep humor, latent in our language and its storehouses; but it takes a keen eye to connect the dots. Jez Burrows is keen indeed.” —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Genre-bending and wildly inventive, Dictionary Stories is a giddy celebration of the originality, flexibility, and beauty of narrative. Love stories, horror stories, noir mysteries, recipes, eulogies, confessions, thrillers—each one a miniature literary remix of unlikely parts hidden in plain sight, created by flipping through the dictionary and knowing where to stop.
“Dictionary Stories brings to literature the spirit of the musical mashup, digging in the crates to find old hooks and arrange them into new delights with an appeal that’s not merely academic but truly pop. This kind of work reminds us: it’s all there, love and disappointment and deep humor, latent in our language and its storehouses; but it takes a keen eye to connect the dots. Jez Burrows is keen indeed.” —Robin Sloan, New York Times bestselling author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore
Genre-bending and wildly inventive, Dictionary Stories is a giddy celebration of the originality, flexibility, and beauty of narrative. Love stories, horror stories, noir mysteries, recipes, eulogies, confessions, thrillers—each one a miniature literary remix of unlikely parts hidden in plain sight, created by flipping through the dictionary and knowing where to stop.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 10, 2018
78 people are currently reading
1072 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
February 7, 2021
Jez Burrows spent one year scouring twelve different dictionaries for sample sentences he then combined into this collection of varied short stories.
The Lord's Prayer, From Memory
Heavenly Father,
What a great guy.
Keep up the good work,
Magic, supernatural powers, and the like.
I beg forgiveness,
I swear by all I hold dear that I had nothing to do with it.
Deliver us from evil,
Or point me in the right direction,
Let's all get the hell out of here.
Amen to that.
February 25, 2018
**I received this book in a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.**
I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% sure I understand what was going on in this book, but I still really enjoyed it! The micro-fictions were very entertaining. And it gave me an idea for writing exercises for myself! So YAY! :D
I'm going to be honest, I'm not 100% sure I understand what was going on in this book, but I still really enjoyed it! The micro-fictions were very entertaining. And it gave me an idea for writing exercises for myself! So YAY! :D
December 31, 2019
The concept is original and fun: write stories using only example sentences from dictionaries. Sometimes additional constraints are added, à la OULIPO, to make it even more interesting, such as using the words only in alphabetical order.
The result is fun, but easier to read in small doses than all at once.
The result is fun, but easier to read in small doses than all at once.
Grace
Before dinner, the Reverend Newman said grace: "Heavenly Father. What kind of heel do you think I am? How dare you talk to me like that! Don't give me any of your back-talk, smart-ass. ... Go on, get lost! I'll get mine, you get yours, we'll all get wealthy. Amen to that!
January 5, 2018
Full disclosure: I won a free ARC of this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Should be on sale as of April 10, 2018 according to the cover.
The entire book revolves around a simple concept. You know how, when you look up a word in a dictionary, there's often a sample sentence or phrase that uses the word, as well as the definition? Well Jez Burrows took those sample sentences and phrases and assembled them into short, short stories--some of them merely a paragraph or two. He lays out his process in the introduction. Some minor changes were made--punctuation, contractions, pronouns, proper names, verb tenses--here and there in the name of narrative flow. But he did his best to preserve as much as possible. Each story ends with a list of the dictionaries used to create it, should you care to check for yourself.
The stories range across many genres, and evoke many moods. There are even a couple of examples of found haiku. On a few pieces, I notice that Burrows undertook an additional challenge. Each sentence or phrase has an underline beneath the word being defined. There are occasionally pieces of exactly 26 sentences, where each defined word begins with a different letter of the alphabet, presented in alphabetical order. If it was a single sentence containing each letter of the alphabet it would be a pangram. I’m sure there's a word for what Mr. Burrows has constructed, but I’m not enough of lexophile to have a clue what it is. Impressive, though.
If you have any love for playing with words and language, you’ll likely find this book as fascinating as I did. Recommended!
The entire book revolves around a simple concept. You know how, when you look up a word in a dictionary, there's often a sample sentence or phrase that uses the word, as well as the definition? Well Jez Burrows took those sample sentences and phrases and assembled them into short, short stories--some of them merely a paragraph or two. He lays out his process in the introduction. Some minor changes were made--punctuation, contractions, pronouns, proper names, verb tenses--here and there in the name of narrative flow. But he did his best to preserve as much as possible. Each story ends with a list of the dictionaries used to create it, should you care to check for yourself.
The stories range across many genres, and evoke many moods. There are even a couple of examples of found haiku. On a few pieces, I notice that Burrows undertook an additional challenge. Each sentence or phrase has an underline beneath the word being defined. There are occasionally pieces of exactly 26 sentences, where each defined word begins with a different letter of the alphabet, presented in alphabetical order. If it was a single sentence containing each letter of the alphabet it would be a pangram. I’m sure there's a word for what Mr. Burrows has constructed, but I’m not enough of lexophile to have a clue what it is. Impressive, though.
If you have any love for playing with words and language, you’ll likely find this book as fascinating as I did. Recommended!
April 24, 2018
Jorge Luis Borges once demeaned the dictionary, writing, "It is often forgotten that [dictionaries] are artificial repositories, put together well after the languages they define. The roots of language are irrational and of a magical nature."
I don't disagree with Borges — I love dictionaries precisely for the reasons he outlines. One can crack one open and, at the sight of the neat classification of meanings, imagine and nearly hallucinate the scent of formaldehyde no doubt involved in the dissection of keeping a living thing splayed out, labeled, and explained away.
Jez Burrows, a British designer, illustrator, and writer living in San Francisco, opened a dictionary in 2015 and looked up the word "study." The Oxford English Dictionary, defines it as "a state of contemplation or musing; a state of mental abstraction; a reverie." But it wasn't the definition that caught his eye, rather it was the example sentence:
"He perched on the edge of his seat, a study in confusion and misery."
To Burrows, the sentence, with its unexpected drama, glowed with "the incongruity of a neon sign in a renaissance painting." He was taken by this solitary man adrift in the dictionary and perhaps not wanting to leave him to his own devices, kept him company by adjoining him to another example sentence:
He perched on the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery, a study of a man devoured by his own mediocrity.
Dictionary Stories by Jez Burrows is an exercise in creative limitation.
Composed of example sentences from twelve different dictionaries, this story collection is a chaotically engaging work. The stories in this collection boast quite a range — from enthralling to entertaining, mildly titillating to moving, philosophical to chuckle-worthy. The writing is of course, and quite literally, exemplary. But the art of this book is in Burrow's enjoyable, incongruous collage that sums up to a meaningful whole. Here is one story "Madame Eva," under the section Prophecy:
"'You'll never amount to anything.' Her voice was flat and emotionless.
They sat looking at each other without speaking. He slapped down a fiver. She considered him coolly for a moment. Madame Eva bent once more over the crystal ball. Her eyes dilated in the dark. She sat back and exhaled deeply.
'You'll get used to it.'"
I swooned for most of the short passages, appreciating how Burrows' sense of collage often found depth in this specific length. Dictionaries, in their mastery of catalog, are well suited for making lists, and Burrows' lists were majestic. In "Sample Problems: Intermediate Mathematics for Poets" Burrows writes: "What is the volume of a cube with sides 3 centimeters long, one afternoon in late October, as the sunset tinges the lake with pink?"
With this collection, I was inundated with the desire to lay the book down and think a while. Indeed, Dictionary Stories is made to be read slowly and intermittently. It is one of those books to be kept bedside and opened to a page at random to read one story before going to sleep.
However, I was glad to have kept reading at length, for I was awash again with this captivating mathematical problem: "At a latitude of 51° north and a longitude of 2° west, Mary laid a clean square of white toweling carefully on the grass. She was like a child. Careful. Thoughtful. Beautiful. Find the cube root of the result."
While collage of first person narration proved to be a challenging task for Burrows — some read like poorly-glued sentences — my favorite one happens to be in first person, under Hallucination.
"We were face to face with death during the avalanche. The storm moved in fast and furious, the lights flickered, and suddenly it was dark. The snow was so heavy, we feared the roof would fall in. Now we've been snowed in for a week, and everyone has cabin fever [...] I thought I saw my father, but I must have been seeing things; he died twenty years ago. He was playing chess with his uncle. He was dressed in white from head to toe. When he saw me, he smiled. I asked him when he was coming back, I asked him but he didn't answer. He just dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee, and blew on his hands to warm them up."
Dictionary Stories is a moving work. If you need me, I might be found playing in a corner with my dictionary.
I don't disagree with Borges — I love dictionaries precisely for the reasons he outlines. One can crack one open and, at the sight of the neat classification of meanings, imagine and nearly hallucinate the scent of formaldehyde no doubt involved in the dissection of keeping a living thing splayed out, labeled, and explained away.
Jez Burrows, a British designer, illustrator, and writer living in San Francisco, opened a dictionary in 2015 and looked up the word "study." The Oxford English Dictionary, defines it as "a state of contemplation or musing; a state of mental abstraction; a reverie." But it wasn't the definition that caught his eye, rather it was the example sentence:
"He perched on the edge of his seat, a study in confusion and misery."
To Burrows, the sentence, with its unexpected drama, glowed with "the incongruity of a neon sign in a renaissance painting." He was taken by this solitary man adrift in the dictionary and perhaps not wanting to leave him to his own devices, kept him company by adjoining him to another example sentence:
He perched on the edge of the bed, a study in confusion and misery, a study of a man devoured by his own mediocrity.
Dictionary Stories by Jez Burrows is an exercise in creative limitation.
Composed of example sentences from twelve different dictionaries, this story collection is a chaotically engaging work. The stories in this collection boast quite a range — from enthralling to entertaining, mildly titillating to moving, philosophical to chuckle-worthy. The writing is of course, and quite literally, exemplary. But the art of this book is in Burrow's enjoyable, incongruous collage that sums up to a meaningful whole. Here is one story "Madame Eva," under the section Prophecy:
"'You'll never amount to anything.' Her voice was flat and emotionless.
They sat looking at each other without speaking. He slapped down a fiver. She considered him coolly for a moment. Madame Eva bent once more over the crystal ball. Her eyes dilated in the dark. She sat back and exhaled deeply.
'You'll get used to it.'"
I swooned for most of the short passages, appreciating how Burrows' sense of collage often found depth in this specific length. Dictionaries, in their mastery of catalog, are well suited for making lists, and Burrows' lists were majestic. In "Sample Problems: Intermediate Mathematics for Poets" Burrows writes: "What is the volume of a cube with sides 3 centimeters long, one afternoon in late October, as the sunset tinges the lake with pink?"
With this collection, I was inundated with the desire to lay the book down and think a while. Indeed, Dictionary Stories is made to be read slowly and intermittently. It is one of those books to be kept bedside and opened to a page at random to read one story before going to sleep.
However, I was glad to have kept reading at length, for I was awash again with this captivating mathematical problem: "At a latitude of 51° north and a longitude of 2° west, Mary laid a clean square of white toweling carefully on the grass. She was like a child. Careful. Thoughtful. Beautiful. Find the cube root of the result."
While collage of first person narration proved to be a challenging task for Burrows — some read like poorly-glued sentences — my favorite one happens to be in first person, under Hallucination.
"We were face to face with death during the avalanche. The storm moved in fast and furious, the lights flickered, and suddenly it was dark. The snow was so heavy, we feared the roof would fall in. Now we've been snowed in for a week, and everyone has cabin fever [...] I thought I saw my father, but I must have been seeing things; he died twenty years ago. He was playing chess with his uncle. He was dressed in white from head to toe. When he saw me, he smiled. I asked him when he was coming back, I asked him but he didn't answer. He just dropped two sugar cubes into his coffee, and blew on his hands to warm them up."
Dictionary Stories is a moving work. If you need me, I might be found playing in a corner with my dictionary.
July 24, 2018
Burrows takes example sentences from dictionaries and weaves them into found stories. Let me say at the beginning that this is an interesting concept that is difficult to execute well, and he does a good job at it.
My rating ("I didn't like it") is because the stories don't work as a collection, at all. The idea is exciting. The first few stories are as well, interesting in their humor or form or unexpectedness or conveyance of a subtlety. The author suggests in the introduction that you could open to a page at random, and this is what I mean: the first few stories you read, chosen from anywhere, in order or not, are exciting. After that though, the form becomes more apparent. There's no unifying theme, no authorial voice, no direction, no truth, and the effect of a literary trick accumulates. By being about anything and everything, they end up being about nothing at all.
One story would be amazing to run across in an article or journal or somewhere online. I would probably clamor for more like anyone else. They would be inspiring to read one at a time, over time. But realistically, the one best of all these stories should be incorporated into an actual collection of writing, where it could shine on its own. Instead the sheer bulk of them reduces it all to a parlor trick.
My rating ("I didn't like it") is because the stories don't work as a collection, at all. The idea is exciting. The first few stories are as well, interesting in their humor or form or unexpectedness or conveyance of a subtlety. The author suggests in the introduction that you could open to a page at random, and this is what I mean: the first few stories you read, chosen from anywhere, in order or not, are exciting. After that though, the form becomes more apparent. There's no unifying theme, no authorial voice, no direction, no truth, and the effect of a literary trick accumulates. By being about anything and everything, they end up being about nothing at all.
One story would be amazing to run across in an article or journal or somewhere online. I would probably clamor for more like anyone else. They would be inspiring to read one at a time, over time. But realistically, the one best of all these stories should be incorporated into an actual collection of writing, where it could shine on its own. Instead the sheer bulk of them reduces it all to a parlor trick.
June 30, 2018
Such a cool idea, but would be better read in small chunks.
April 30, 2018
Jez’s book immediately gets my attention for its ludicrous premise, but it also has to pass the test of, are these stories made up of example usage sentences from dictionaries actually… you know, good? The answer is: boy howdy! If you DIDN’T know how the book was constructed, you’d still be charmed as heck by the tiny plot twists, comedic repartees, and heartbreaks in its tales. This is how you marry form and meaning and guarantee a lifelong happy union between the two.
November 25, 2018
Wasnt sure what to expect upon reading this. The cover and title grabbed me right away though.
When looking up a word or phrase in the dictionary there is always a sample phrase/sentance of the word and a definition. Well Jez Burrows has taken those samples and phrases and assembled them into very short stories. Some only a paragraph long. I found this very interesting and original!
Definitely check this one out!
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
When looking up a word or phrase in the dictionary there is always a sample phrase/sentance of the word and a definition. Well Jez Burrows has taken those samples and phrases and assembled them into very short stories. Some only a paragraph long. I found this very interesting and original!
Definitely check this one out!
•
For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong
May 21, 2018
I really enjoyed this book as a word-nerd. Would give it 4.5 stars for creativity, fun to read short stories, and being genuinely impressed that writing a story from dictionary example sentences is possible. Would highly recommend if you were like me and did read the dictionary as a kid, but would also recommend for those who like short poem-like stories. It is a great book to read a little before sleep or if you don't have a lot of time to commit to a novel.
July 4, 2018
This is a treasure of short stories made up of dictionary entry example sentences. Some of these are very short, as little as a haiku, others are up to a couple of pages long. Almost all of them have something unexpected, often hilarious. Once I started, I could not stop reading. This is great for anyone who appreciates vocabulary words and spelling tests.
January 24, 2018
What cute way of making stories out of words.
May 14, 2018
Smart, funny, hip.
My review, for the San Francisco Chronicle:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/books/art...
My review, for the San Francisco Chronicle:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/books/art...
May 25, 2018
You can feel the love and care that went into every sentence of this book. Not only is its concept a stroke of genius but it’s a stupendously enjoyable read.
June 22, 2018
Different. Interesting. Funny sometimes. Bizarre sometimes. Only a few parts I didn't care for.
August 21, 2018
Amazing Concept and such a creative idea! I loved reading this book.
June 9, 2019
Utterly amazing, fantastic, and emotionally compromising. A whirlwind of hilarity and anguish, in short bite sizes.
February 4, 2020
The introduction was funny and it's an interesting concept. The rest of the book is made up of little stories and I bored quickly. Made it to 27%.
April 14, 2025
As whimsically witty as it gets
February 3, 2022
It was the perfect level of absurd for me. It reminded me of something out of the Oulipo group, trying to write fiction within a certain set of constraints.
July 14, 2018
An ingenious idea; putting together sentences from dictionaries to create stories, poems and lists. As you might expect, the stories are a bit disjointed, but clever and often funny. I especially liked the lists, which usually took some random and hilarious turns.
June 17, 2018
A very different read but very clever too. I found it was a bit disjointed at times as each letter a stand along story in itself.
August 13, 2018
What is the volume of a cube with sides 3 centimeters long, one afternoon in late October, as the sunset tinges the lake with pink?
A train runs hourly from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the rate of 60 kilometers an hour. I get up at 6 every day. If the meeting starts at 9:30 sharp, and the journey takes two hours by train, what are we all doing here?
At a latitude of 51° north and a longitude of 2° west, Mary laid a clean square of white towelling carefully on the grass. She was like a child. Careful. Thoughtful. Beautiful. Find the cube root of the result.
The idealism of youth. The inevitability of death. The area of a triangle.
The answer is 280°. The question is not yet decided, one way or the other.
A train runs hourly from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the rate of 60 kilometers an hour. I get up at 6 every day. If the meeting starts at 9:30 sharp, and the journey takes two hours by train, what are we all doing here?
At a latitude of 51° north and a longitude of 2° west, Mary laid a clean square of white towelling carefully on the grass. She was like a child. Careful. Thoughtful. Beautiful. Find the cube root of the result.
The idealism of youth. The inevitability of death. The area of a triangle.
The answer is 280°. The question is not yet decided, one way or the other.
July 6, 2019
This book is just a refreshing break. The stories are packed full of intrigue, humor, tragedy, and heart-warming goodness, and just about everything else a book can have, but all in bite-size pieces. Not every story is a home-run, but the variety means there's something for everyone. Also, GREAT for writers and word lovers. I was delighted by how much the author was able to accomplish given the restraint of only using dictionary example sentences. It really makes you think about what a story can be. Thought I was only going to read a couple of stories here and there when I grew tired of my current book, but I couldn't put this book down!
June 13, 2018
Some entries were very good; evocative. Most were not. A new way to look at writing. I read it in small chunks on the MAX whilst commuting.
November 13, 2018
I can only imagine the record keeping he had to do to write this. The shifts of tone made me laugh pretty constantly. Yes, it got a little staccato-y at times but well worth it.
Reminded me a lot of Joey Comeau.
Reminded me a lot of Joey Comeau.
February 17, 2024
I write this review assuming you already know what this book is, so I'm skipping to the part where I say whether the concept "works" or not.
As with all collections, some of the entries are better than others, but none of them are terrible. There are of course heavy limitations on what can be said, requiring a little more from the reader to round them out in their own imagination than other stories might. Then again, mystery and perhaps less than completely satisfying endings are a common feature for shorts, so this drawback is almost expected. Some of the entries here are surprisingly sophisticated, others pithy and clever, and of course, a few that may not "make it," in your opinion. But judging is half the fun anyway.
As a body, Burrow's own, specific style of humor shows through. Some jokes and lines are recycled, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as some of those jokes are funny, and the lines exceptionally powerful and evocative. Still, it does seem that a different editor, even using the same sources and the same rules, would arrive at a very different collection of stories.
If I had a complaint, it would be that the word each dictionary intended to highlight is underlined, drawing attention to the poetic exercise of playing with the dictionary at the expense of storytelling. I fully recognize this must have been a choice Burrows agonized over, and his choice just happens to contradict my personal preference. That's perfectly okay with me. Having finished, I believe it was one of the best options available to me at the time and I enjoyed the read.
As with all collections, some of the entries are better than others, but none of them are terrible. There are of course heavy limitations on what can be said, requiring a little more from the reader to round them out in their own imagination than other stories might. Then again, mystery and perhaps less than completely satisfying endings are a common feature for shorts, so this drawback is almost expected. Some of the entries here are surprisingly sophisticated, others pithy and clever, and of course, a few that may not "make it," in your opinion. But judging is half the fun anyway.
As a body, Burrow's own, specific style of humor shows through. Some jokes and lines are recycled, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as some of those jokes are funny, and the lines exceptionally powerful and evocative. Still, it does seem that a different editor, even using the same sources and the same rules, would arrive at a very different collection of stories.
If I had a complaint, it would be that the word each dictionary intended to highlight is underlined, drawing attention to the poetic exercise of playing with the dictionary at the expense of storytelling. I fully recognize this must have been a choice Burrows agonized over, and his choice just happens to contradict my personal preference. That's perfectly okay with me. Having finished, I believe it was one of the best options available to me at the time and I enjoyed the read.
December 9, 2025
Quite the delight of a book, dictionary sentence assemblage. and pulled off with vigour. Burrows absolutely benefits from the source being rife to pull from, and the pieces are so often filled with witticisms and Burrows has a sharp eye to find a quick turn and a surprising witticisms. I feel the micro stories tend to work better than the list poems, but ultimately , the source will determine the possibilities. In some ways, I'd compare this to Harry Matthew's "Country Cooking from Central France", the endless piling on of material, getting more and more absurd. With constraint work, folks often think the feat is just pulling it off, but the true feat is when the constraint disappears and the pieces just work on their own. And as someone who also does constraint/assemblage work, I very much recognize when he'll often do that, and I absolutely commend.
July 7, 2020
Having Trouble Writing a Story? Start With the Dictionary!
Just the notion that someone would think to write a book based on samples sentences found in the dictionary is very intriguing. It did cause me to download and read the book. The short stories in many cases were a hodgepodge but as long as I forced myself to remember the goal of the book I read the book to the end. Would I recommend to others? I would say yes if you are looking for a very unique creative writing experiment. I would say no if you expect to read several coherent stories with a beginning, middle and end.
Maurice Rubino
Just the notion that someone would think to write a book based on samples sentences found in the dictionary is very intriguing. It did cause me to download and read the book. The short stories in many cases were a hodgepodge but as long as I forced myself to remember the goal of the book I read the book to the end. Would I recommend to others? I would say yes if you are looking for a very unique creative writing experiment. I would say no if you expect to read several coherent stories with a beginning, middle and end.
Maurice Rubino
October 3, 2018
The gimmick is interesting but the writing is both bad and un-compelling. It is very reminiscent of reading the dictionary but not in a good way. I was annoyed by all of the vocab words being underlined, which was very boring. If there hadn’t been rules and instead the dictionary sentences were an initial creative inspiration it could have been really interesting but the language was so bland and stilted. Two stars because it could have been good and the idea behind it was interesting but it just wasn’t worth my time.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews