Autumn: SHORTLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017 (Seasonal Quartet, 1) - Softcover

Smith, Ali

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0241973317 ISBN 13: 9780241973318

Publisher: Penguin, 2017

Synopsis

A Guardian Best Book of the 21st Century

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

SUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLER

'In a country apparently divided against itself, a writer such as Smith is more valuable than a whole parliament of politicians' Financial Times

'Undoubtedly Smith at her best. Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting' The Times

'A beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities... The first post-Brexit novel' Guardian

A breathtakingly inventive new novel from the Man Booker-shortlisted and Baileys Prize-winning author of How to be both

Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.

Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever . . .

'Terrific, extraordinary, playful... There is an awful lot to lift the soul' Daily Mail

'Bold and brilliant' Observer

About this title

Review:

I love Ali Smith's writing, and I've been keeping Autumn for an end-of-book holiday treat (Val McDermid, 'The Observer')

In a country apparently divided against itself, a writer such as Smith is more valuable than a whole parliament of politicians (Financial Times)

Bold and brilliant, dealing with the body blow of Brexit to offer us something rare: hope (Jackie Kay)

Humour, grace, solace...A light-footed meditation on mortality, mutability and how to keep your head in troubled times (The Guardian)

Transcendental writing about art, death and all the dimensions of love. It's not so much 'reading between the lines' as being blinded by the light between the lines - in a good way (Deborah Levy)

The novel of the year is obviously Ali Smith's Autumn, which managed the miracle of making at least a kind of sense out of post-Brexit Britain (The Observer)

Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities (The Guardian)

Experimental, thematically complex, associative, time-juggling, powered by a crazed and energetic curiosity (Sunday Times)

Pure literary magic (Mail on Sunday)

Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting. Long may she Remain that way (The Times)

From the Back Cover:

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017.

Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That's what it felt like for Keats in 1819.

How about Autumn 2016?

Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer.

Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.

Ali Smith's new novel is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time. Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop art: the centuries cast their eyes over our own history-making.

Here's where we're living. Here's time at its most contemporaneous and its most cyclic.

From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories, and a story about ageing and time and love and stories themselves.

Here comes Autumn

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0241973317
• ISBN 13: 9780241973318
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272