Autumn: SHORTLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017

Description

'The novel of the year is obviously Ali Smith's Autumn... Expansive, shape-shifting, at once more stringent and more consoling than anything I've read this year' Olivia Laing, Observer Autumn 2016- Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. And the UK 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 filling up with borders, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. From Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, via Keatsian melancholy and the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop Art, this first in a quartet of novels casts an eye over our own time, asking who we are, where we are, right now. Here is time, ever-changing, ever cyclical. Here comes Autumn.

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of Spring, Winter, Autumn, Public library and other stories, How to be both, Shire, Artful, There but for the, The first person and other stories, Girl Meets Boy, The Accidental, The whole story and other stories, Hotel World, Other stories and other stories, Like and Free Love. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Bailey's Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Autumn was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

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 * A wonderfully risky project...an ambitious, multi-layered creation...an energising and uplifting story * The Daily Telegraph * A moving exploration of the intricacies of the imagination, a sly teasing-out of a host of big ideas and small revelations, all hovering around a timeless quandary: how to observe, how to be * The New York Times * I wonder: How does she manage to so wonderfully weave in and out of time, to layer time, while creating something that feels like it was written this morning after she read today's newspaper? * PBS News Hour * Publisher's description. Autumn 2016: the UK is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. The seasons roll round as ever. From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting, light-footed, time-travelling novel. This is a story about right now, this minute; about ageing and time and love and stories themselves. Here comes Autumn. * Penguin * 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 book I'd like to receive for Christmas: Ali Smith's Autumn. * Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train * Fantastic writing, big ideas and generosity of spirit * Spectator * [Ali Smith] is Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting - and I can't wait for her new book * Sebastian Barry, Observer * Humour, grace, solace...A light-footed meditation on mortality, mutability and how to keep your head in troubled times * Guardian, Best Fiction 2016 * Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities * Guardian * [Ali Smith] is simply incapable of writing a dull paragraph * New Statesman * Bold and brilliant, dealing with the body blow of Brexit to offer us something rare: hope. * Jackie Kay, poet * 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. * Olivia Laing, Observer * Ever-inventive...Autumn is the first serious Brexit novel...In a country apparently divided against itself, a writer such as Smith is more valuable than a whole parliament of politicians. * Financial Times, Books of the Year *