 First edition | |
| Author | Ali Smith |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| ISBN | 9780241145401 |
Artful is a 2012 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was shortlisted for the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013. [1]
| First edition | |
| Author | Ali Smith |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
| ISBN | 9780241145401 |
Artful is a 2012 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith and published by Hamish Hamilton. It was shortlisted for the inaugural Goldsmiths Prize in 2013. [1]
This book is based on four lectures given by Ali Smith at Oxford University, the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature. [2] The four headings are: "On Time", "On Form", "On Edge", and "On Offer and On Reflection".
It has two fictional characters. One is a woman mourning her dead lover and the other is her dead lover who still seems to be present. She speaks to the mourning woman in Greek, steals belongings, and causes a nuisance. The dead woman was working on some lectures when she died, and the living one works with trees.
The English author and critic Julie Myerson wrote in the Guardian that "if this book has a central subject, it's the relationship between thought and art".
Smith explores different artists throughout the book including the surrealists, William Shakespeare, and Jackie Kay. [3]
Upon release, Artful was generally well-received. Culture Critic gave it an aggregated critic score of 98 percent based on British and American press reviews. [4] The Bookseller reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Top form", "Flawed but worth a read", and "Disappointing": Financial Times review under "Top form" and Observer review under "Flawed but worth a read". [5] On Bookmarks May/June 2013 issue, reported on reviews from several publications with ratings for the novel out of five: San Francisco Chronicle gave it a five, NY Times Book Review and New York Times gave it a four, and AV Club gave it a three with a critical summary saying, "Real art will hold us at all our different ages like it held all the people before us and will hold all the people after us, in an elasticity and with a generosity that allow for all our comings and goings," Smith writes in an attempt at articulating why great art hits us in just the right way, a goal that she mostly meets". [6]
The Independent called the novel "smart, allusive, informal, playful, and audacious". [7]
Julie Myerson in The Guardian said the novel is "a seductive and compelling case for the power of imagination. Or – to go back to Dickens – a gorgeous and artfully dodging work of "shifting possibility". Or, in the words of Katherine Mansfield who, on finishing DH Lawrence's Aaron's Rod , compared it to a tree "firmly planted, deep thrusting, outspread, growing grandly, alive in every twig. All the time I read this book I felt it was feeding me." Back to trees, then, a perfect leitmotif for the unstoppable nourishment of literature. And there is food and substance in this wonderful, deeply original book." [3]
Leah Hager Cohen in The New York Times said "A wordsmith to the very smithy of her soul, she is at once deeply playful and deeply serious. And her new book, in which she tugs at God’s sleeve, ruminates on clowns, shoplifts used books, dabbles in Greek and palavers with the dead, is a stunner." [8]
Julie Myerson is an English author and critic. As well as fiction and non-fiction books, she formerly wrote a column in The Guardian entitled "Living with Teenagers", based on her family experiences. She appeared regularly as a panellist on the arts programme Newsnight Review.
Ali Smith CBE FRSL is a Scottish author, playwright, academic and journalist. Sebastian Barry described her in 2016 as "Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting".
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The Accidental is a 2005 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. It follows a middle-class English family who are visited by an uninvited guest, Amber, while they are on holiday in a small village in Norfolk. Amber's arrival has a profound effect on all the family members. Eventually she is cast out the house by the mother, Eve. But the consequences of her appearance continue even after the family has returned home to London.
Run is a 2007 novel by American author Ann Patchett. It was her first novel after the widely successful Bel Canto (2001).
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There But For The is a 2011 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton and in the US by Pantheon, and set in 2009 and 2010 in Greenwich, London. It was cited by both The Guardian book review and the Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year. and was also longlisted for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction.
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Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity is a non-fiction book by Andrew Solomon published in November 2012 in the United States and two months later in the UK, about how families accommodate children with physical, mental and social disabilities and differences.
This Is How You Lose Her is the second collection of short stories by Junot Díaz. It is the third of Díaz's books to feature his recurring protagonist Yunior, following his 1996 short story collection, Drown and his 2007 novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The collection is composed of nine interlinked short stories.
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Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for which Adichie won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie's third novel, published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf.
Life After Life is a 2013 novel by Kate Atkinson. It is the first of two novels about the Todd family. The second, A God in Ruins, was published in 2015. Life After Life garnered acclaim from critics.
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing is the debut novel of Eimear McBride published in 2013.
How to Be Both is a 2014 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published by Hamish Hamilton. It was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the 2015 Folio Prize. It won the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize, the Novel Award in the 2014 Costa Book Awards and the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
Autumn is a 2016 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published by Hamish Hamilton. It is the first of four seasonal ‘state of the nation’ works. Written rapidly after the United Kingdom's 2016 European Union membership referendum, it was widely regarded as the first 'post-Brexit novel' dealing with the issues raised by the voters' decision. In July 2017, Autumn was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize for Fiction and in September 2017 it was announced as one of six books to make the shortlist. Many newspapers viewed it as the most likely candidate for winning; it was beaten by George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo.
A God in Ruins is Kate Atkinson's ninth novel, published in 2015. The main character, Teddy Todd, is the younger brother of Ursula Todd, the protagonist in Atkinson's 2013 novel, Life After Life. Atkinson calls it the "companion piece" rather than a sequel to the earlier novel. The first book spans half a century, including World War II; the second is set entirely within it. It won the Costa Book Award for Novel in 2015.
Outline is a novel by Rachel Cusk, the first in a trilogy known as The Outline trilogy, which also contains the novels Transit and Kudos. It was chosen by The New York Times critics as one of the 15 remarkable books by women that are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." The New Yorker has called the novel "autobiographical fiction."
Grand Union: Stories is a 2019 short story collection by Zadie Smith. It was published on 3 October 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books.
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