Ali Smith

public-library-and-other-stories

About us

About Us (Header 4)

Kate-Atkinson

James-Baldwin

Marian-Keyes

haruki-murakami-320×320-1

Richard-Osman

Malorie Blackman

Lisa-Jewell

Charlie-Mackesy

Authors (Header 3)

Children&#039;s

Company

Discover

Fiction

Non-fiction

Penguin Classics

Penguin Shop (Header 5)

Useful links

Work with us

Glyph

Gliff

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of How to be both

Companion piece

Everyman's Pocket Classics complements highly successful Pocket Poets series, offering the best prose writing in a handy pocket-sized format. Like all Everyman Library books, each title is printed on a cream-wove, acid-free paper with full cloth sewn binding, headbands and silk ribbon marker. Eminently collectable and great gifts.

Scottish Stories

Free Love

Reunion

Like

Winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction 2021

Summer

The Accidental

'A dazzling hymn to hope’ Observer

Spring

Winter

SHORTLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017

Autumn

Hotel World

How to be Both

Love Quarrels from Anton Chekhov to ZZ Packer

Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Artful

There but for the

The First Person and Other Stories

<a href="https://shop.penguin.co.uk/collections/book-bundles-modern-classics/?&amp;utm_source=Penguin.co.uk&amp;utm_medium=Linked_text&amp;utm_campaign=Penguin_Modern_Classics_Series_26_06">Choose 3 timeless classics for only £21 over on the Penguin Shop</a>

The Member of the Wedding

Sunset Song

Public library and other stories

Penguin Shop: 3 Clothbound Classics for £33

Publisher's description. A story collection from the peerless, multi-award-winning Ali Smith. What do we do with books - and what do they do with us? How do books shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once? And how might they remind us to pay attention to the world we make?

Smith is dazzling in her daring. Sheer inventive power

Ali Smith is a one-off.  Her imagination and originality make her one of the most exciting novelists of her generation

In Ali Smith we have a writer whose dazzling sophistication will surely be celebrated, studied and argues over hundreds of years after we're gone

Smith's world is incredibly generous - it's a place where all sorts of stories and human connections are possible

Why are books so very powerful? 
What do the books we've read over our lives - our own personal libraries - make of us? 
What does the unravelling of our tradition of public libraries, so hard-won but now in jeopardy, say about us? 
 
The stories in Ali Smith's new collection are about what we do with books and what they do with us: how they travel with us; how they shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once; how they remind us to pay attention to the world we make.

A richly inventive collection of stories about our enduring love of books from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 
 
 'Smith is dazzling in her daring. Sheer inventive power' Observer 
 
Why are books so powerful? 
What do the books we read make of us? 
And what does the vanishing of public libraries say about us? 
 
 These stories are about what we do with books and what they do with us: how they travel with us; how they shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once; how they remind us to pay attention to the world we make. 
 
 Public libraries are places of joy, freedom, community and discovery - and they are under threat from funding cuts and widespread closures across the UK and further afield. With this brilliantly inventive collection, Ali Smith raises her voice in defence of our public libraries, celebrating their essential place in our culture and history. 
 
***** 
 
'Ali Smith is a one-off. Her imagination and originality make her one of the most exciting novelists of her generation' Daily Express 
 
'In Ali Smith we have a writer whose dazzling sophistication will surely be celebrated, studied and argues over hundreds of years after we're gone' Scotsman 
 
'Smith's world is incredibly generous - it's a place where all sorts of stories and human connections are possible' Metro

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

Public library and other stories

Format:

Buy the book from:

About Ali Smith

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter