The Word Exchange, Alena Graedon

A debut novel, set in the near future. Print is dying and language, the very fabric of what makes us human is under attack. Ana Johnson works for her father Doug at one of the only two dictionaries left in print. The night he disappears is the night that Ana begins to fall out of love with the technology that her generation have become so dependent on.

Ana, her friend Bart and the dwindling members of the Diachronic Society are the only obstacles standing in the path of the mighty Synchronic Corporation’s crusade to own language but even Synchronic have no idea of the firestorm they are about to unleash.

Graedon has taken our current technology obsession and extrapolated from there, you might cut down on your smartphone use after reading this.