Zadie Smith

A far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time'Alarmingly good' Metro'Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent' Independent'Supremely good. Smith writes with such infectious zeal and engaging accessibility that it makes you want to turn up at her house and demand tutoring' Dazed'Brilliant' Vogue

" These essays] reflect a lively, unselfconscious, rigorous, erudite, and earnestly open mind that's busy refining its view of life, literature, and a great deal in between." --Los Angeles Times Split into five sections--Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, and Remembering--Changing My Mind finds Zadie Smith casting an acute eye over material both personal and cultural. This engaging collection of essays, some published here for the first time, reveals Smith as a passionate and precise essayist, equally at home in the world of great books and bad movies, family and philosophy, British comedians and Italian divas. Whether writing on Katherine Hepburn, Kafka, Anna Magnani, or Zora Neale Hurston, she brings deft care to the art of criticism with a style both sympathetic and insightful. Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent, and funny--a gift to readers and writers both.

Monikulttuurisesti rönsyilevä, säkenöivän huumorin ryydittämä aikalaisromaani etnisiltä taustoiltaan eroavien perheiden vaiheista ja valinnoista. "Aika on sitä miten käyttää rakkautensa." Jo viisitoista vuotta Howard Belsey ja hänen arkkivihollisensa Monty Kipps ovat nokitelleet toisiaan samoissa akateemisissa ympyröissä. Jerome, Belseyn ateistiperheen musta lammas, säikäyttää isänsä suunnittelemalla häitä uskonnollisten Kippsien tyttären kanssa, mutta kaikkien onneksi seurustelu paljastuu vain "romanttiseksi sekoiluksi". Yhdeksän kuukautta myöhemmin perheiden polut risteävät jälleen, kun sir Monty kutsutaan luennoitsijaksi Howardin yliopistoon ja Kippsit muuttavat Lontoosta Atlantin taakse Wellingtoniin. Suorapuheiset äidit Kiki Belsey ja Carlene Kipps intoutuvat tuota pikaa aviollisten kulissiensa takaisiin paljastuksiin. Belseyn nuorin vesa Levi harhautuu kapitalismin kultaisilta poluilta ja tomera tytär Zora päättää tehdä vaikutuksen katujen kasvattamaan räppärirunoilijaan. Myös muita epätodennäköisiä suhteita solmitaan, kun Belseyt ja Kippsit ottavat osaa toistensa iloihin ja suruihin. Kauneudesta on säkenöivän älykäs aikalaisromaani etnisiltä taustoiltaan eroavien perheiden vaiheista ja valinnoista; humoristinen ja polveileva kertomus itsepetoksesta ja anteeksiannosta. Kauneudesta, Zadie Smithin kolmas romaani, sijoittui viime vuonna The New York Timesin kymmenen parhaimman teoksen listalle. Kesäkuussa 2006 romaani voitti kaunokirjallisuuden Orange-palkinnon. "Tässä kirjassa yhdistyvät erinomaisesti kehitellyt henkilöhahmot taitavaan ja näennäisen vaivattomaan juonenkuljetukseen." - Martha Kearney, tuomariston puheenjohtaja "Kauneudesta on kukaties nautittavin tänä vuonna julkaistu kaunokirjallinen teos ja ylittää kevyesti jopa Smithin kahden edellisen romaanin ansiot." - Alex Clark, The Telegraph "Teos vakiinnuttaa Smithin aseman merkittävänä romaanikirjailijana, jonka voimavarana on erityisesti perheenjäsenten välisten sydämen tuntojen ja järjen liikahdusten ymmärtäminen." - Stephanie Merritt, The Observer "Tätä satiirista, viisasta ja seksikästä teosta voi kriittisestikin arvioiden vain ylistää, ihastella tai kuvata sanalla ’vaude’". - Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, long-suffering art professor Howard Belsey finds his family life thrown into turmoil by his son's engagement to the socially prominent daughter of a right-wing icon. By the author of White Teeth. Reader's Guide available. Reprint. 250,000 first printing.

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZESUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERFrom the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and familyWhy do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful? Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.'I didn't want to finish, I was enjoying it so much' Evening Standard'Thrums with intellectual sass and know-how' Literary Review'Filled with humour, generosity and contemporary sparkle' Daily Telegraph 'Satirical, wise and sexy' Washington Post

Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering Professor at Wellington College. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths, and faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Then Jerome, Howard's oldest son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps. Increasingly, the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register...

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, the very best pieces are selected by an editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field, making the Best American series the most respected - and most popular - of its kind. Dave Eggers, who will be editing The Best American Nonrequired Reading annually, has once again chosen the best and least-expected fiction, nonfiction, satire, investigative reporting, alternative comics, and more from publications large, small, and on-line -- The Onion, The New Yorker, Shout, Time, Zoetrope, Tin House, Nerve.com, and McSweeney's, to name just a few.

Autograph trader Alex-Li Tandem embarks on a picaresque odyssey that takes him from London to New York in pursuit of the only autograph that has ever really mattered to him, dealing with mystical lore, con men, interfering rabbis, fellow collectors, and bonsai dealers that would hinder his quest. By the author of White Teeth. Reprint. 80,000 first printing.

"A glorious concoction written by our most beguiling and original prose-wizard" Independent on Sunday Deeply funny, subversive and splendidly entertaining, The Autograph Man is a whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. Following one Alex-Li Tandem – a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organized religion – it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart’s desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols – about ourselves – The Autograph Man is a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Updated for the 25th Anniversary with a new introduction by the author - The blockbuster debut novel from "a preternaturally gifted" writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time--set against London's racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, and embracing the comedy of daily existence. One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Zadie Smith's dazzling debut caught critics grasping for comparisons and deciding on everyone from Charles Dickens to Salman Rushdie to John Irving and Martin Amis. But the truth is that Zadie Smith's voice is remarkably, fluently, and altogether wonderfully her own. At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England's irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn't quite match her name (Jamaican for "no problem"). Samad's late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal's every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith. " White Teeth] is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones, and textures...with a raucous energy and confidence." --The New York Times Book Review

One of the most iconic fictional debuts of all time turns 25 this year!‘What’s past is prologue…’First published in the year 2000, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was one of the most celebrated novels of the new millennium. Adored by critics and readers alike, it remains a perennial bestseller, which still delights with the audacity of its scope and vision, its fresh-minted style, and the wit and warmth of its voice. Funny, generous and big-hearted, it deals – among many other things – with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle. A life affirming, riotous must-read of a book, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award.‘Curl up with it, savour every sentence, then turn around and reread’ The Times‘The outstanding debut of the new millennium’ Observe

'White Teeth' is a comic epic of multicultural Britain which tells the story of immigrants in England over a period of 40 years.