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Ali Smith's Reading List

The author, most recently, of “Autumn” ranks “Invitation to a Beheading” among the great books: “Nabokov treats us to, then liberates us from, the bad farce of totalitarianism. What a blast.”

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By the Book: Ali Smith (2017)

NYT By the Book column (2017-02-07).

Source: www.nytimes.com

Invitation to a Beheading
Vladimir Nabokov · Buy on Amazon
"Nabokov treats us to, then liberates us from, the bad farce of totalitarianism. What a blast."
Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov · Buy on Amazon
"the energy in it, the vision, the richness, the force of voice, the panache, the detail... reading Nabokov is always liberating."
Cover of 1984
1984
George Orwell · 1949 · Buy on Amazon
"The Two Minutes Hate — the Two Minutes Tweet? "A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, . . . an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.""
O Caledonia
Elspeth Barker · Buy on Amazon
"a sparky, funny work of genius about class, romanticism, social tradition and literary tradition, and one of the best least-known novels of the 20th century."
Cover of The Bell Jar
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath · Buy on Amazon
"Opening that package and finding it there was the closest I suspect I'll ever come to being given a sports car or a pony."
Cover of King Lear
King Lear
William Shakespeare · Buy on Amazon
"It's good and prescient about divided kingdoms."
The Stone Raft
Jose Saramago · Buy on Amazon
"a book about what happens when a piece of the Iberian Peninsula breaks off mainland Europe and floats off by itself"
Trumpet
Jackie Kay · Buy on Amazon
"a novel whose humanism, humor and vision demolish anyone's urge to think they've got the right to decide about, categorize or dismiss other human beings."

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