Zadie Smith
1) The fraud
Author
Publisher
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Pub. Date
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Language
English
Appears on list
Description
"It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper--and cousin by marriage--of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years. Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also skeptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully...
2) Swing time
Author
Publisher
Not Supplied
Pub. Date
2016.
Language
English
Description
Two brown girls dream of being dancers?but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves...
3) White teeth
Author
Publisher
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Pub. Date
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Language
English
Description
On New Year's morning, 1975, Archie Jones sits in his car on a London road and waits for the exhaust fumes to fill his Cavalier Musketeer station wagon. Archie--working-class, ordinary, a failed marriage under his belt--is calling it quits, the deciding factor being the flip of a 20-pence coin. When the owner of a nearby halal butcher shop (annoyed that Archie's car is blocking his delivery area) comes out and bangs on the window, he gives Archie...
Author
Publisher
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Pub. Date
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Language
English
Description
"A dazzling collection of short fiction, more than half of which have never been published before, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and Swing Time Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically-respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world....
Author
Publisher
Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Pub. Date
2018.
Language
English
Description
A collection of both previously unpublished works and classic essays includes discussions of recent cultural and political events, social networking, libraries, and the failure to address global warming.
"Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel, White Teeth, almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also as a brilliant and singular essayist. She...
6) NW
Author
Publisher
Penguin Press
Pub. Date
2012.
Language
English
Description
"Four Londoners--Leah, Natalie, Felix, and Nathan--try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end."--From publisher's information.
Author
Publisher
Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Pub. Date
2023.
Language
English
Description
"In her stage-writing debut, celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith brings to life a comedic and cutting twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Wife of Bath. The Wife of Willesden follows Alvita, a Jamaican-born British woman in her mid-50s, as she tells her life story to a band of strangers in a small pub on the Kilburn High Road. Wearing fake gold chains, dressed in knock-off designer clothes, and speaking in a...
8) On beauty
Author
Publisher
Penguin Press
Pub. Date
2005.
Language
English
Description
Struggling with a stale marriage and the misguided passions of his three adult children, 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.
Author
Publisher
Not Supplied
Pub. Date
Not Supplied
Language
English
Description
Autograph trader Alex-Li Tandem embarks on an odyssey that takes him from London to New York in pursuit of the only autograph that has ever really mattered to him, dealing with con men and fellow collectors who would hinder his quest.
Author
Publisher
Penguin Books
Pub. Date
[2020]
Language
English
Description
"Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of reflective essays by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time Written during the early months of lockdown, Intimations explores ideas and questions prompted by an unprecedented situation. What does it mean to submit to a new reality--or to resist it? How do we compare relative sufferings? What is the relationship between time and work? In our isolation, what...
12) The surprise
Author
Publisher
Viking
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
"Meet Maud: a guinea pig who inexplicably wears a judo suit--and not everyone understands or approves. When Maud is thrown into a new and confusing situation, it takes brave decisions and serendipitous encounters for her to find her place and embrace her individuality"--
Author
Publisher
Thorndike Press Large Print
Pub. Date
20201125.
Language
English
Description
"Written during the early months of lockdown, Intimations explores ideas and questions prompted by an unprecedented situation. What does it mean to submit to a new reality--or to resist it? How do we compare relative sufferings? What is the relationship between time and work? In our isolation, what do other people mean to us? How do we think about them? What is the ratio of contempt to compassion in a crisis? When an unfamiliar world arrives, what...
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House
Pub. Date
2019.
Language
English
Description
"This inspirational book juxtaposes quotations, one to a page, drawn from Toni Morrison's entire body of work, both fiction and nonfiction--from The Bluest Eye to God Help the Child, from Playing in the Dark to The Source of Self-Regard--to tell a story of self-actualization. It aims to evoke the totality of Toni Morrison's literary vision. Its sequence of flashes of revelation--remarkable for their linguistic felicity, keenness of psychological observation,...
16) NW
Publisher
BBC Worldwide Ltd
Pub. Date
[2018]
Language
English
Description
Twenty years after they grew up in a public housing complex in mulicultural Northwest London, Natalie and Leah hardly recognize each other. Catapulted out of urban poverty by ambition and hard work, Natalie has won the success she craves, while Leah stayed close to friends and family, cherishing her working-class life. Can the women's friendship survive a looming crisis in the complex world between fortune and failure, culture and class?
Author
Publisher
Alfred A. Knopf
Pub. Date
2022.
Language
English
Description
In this 1983 short story about race and the relationships that shape us through life, Twyla and Roberta, friends since childhood who are seemingly at opposite ends of every problem as they grow older, cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.