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Autumn

SHORTLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017
By Ali Smith
Series: Seasonal Quartet
0.0 (0 reviews)
3.66 goodreads logo

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Check link for latest rating. ( 80,013 ratings, 8,085 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Autumn by Ali Smith explores themes of time, memory, and love through a friendship between an elderly man, Daniel, and a young woman, Elisabeth. Set against the backdrop of post-Brexit Britain, the novel weaves their individual histories with reflections on contemporary society, art, and the changing seasons. With its lyrical narrative, Autumn delves into the interconnectedness of life and the fluid nature of time.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This novel may appeal to you if you enjoy a beautifully woven tapestry of contemporary life that explores themes of time, memory, and the shifting seasons of human relationships. It's an enchanting and thought-provoking narrative set against the backdrop of a post-Brexit Britain, capturing the intricate dance of friendship and the effect of political and environmental changes on personal worlds. If you're drawn to lyrical prose and intriguing character studies, this book may captivate your heart.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

"Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy, and the color hit of pop art, Autumn is [an] ... excavation of the present by the past. The novel is a stripped-branches take on popular culture and a meditation--in a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive--on what richness and worth are, what harvest means"--

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 . . .

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! 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.

Series: Seasonal Quartet

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  • Spring
    Unmissable third instalment in the bestselling, critically adored, dazzling inventive novel cycle, the Seasonal Quartet. What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over...
    By Ali Smith
    Paperback
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  • Summer
    The dazzling, unforgettable conclusion to Ali Smith's tour de force, Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet. In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother, Robert, just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile, the world's in meltdown - and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and...
    By Ali Smith
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
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  • Winter
    Dark yet life-affirming, endlessly inventive and heart-breakingly human - the next novel in the Seasonal cycle, following the Man Booker-shortlisted Autumn. Winter? Bleak. Earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. But winter makes things visible. And Christmas is a time for family reunions, unexpected guests and evergreen truths. It's December in Cornwall and Art's mother is...
    Paperback
    $2400
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    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • On Sale
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    Autumn
    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...
    By Ali Smith
    Paperback
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Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Autumn by Ali Smith has been praised for its bold and brilliant narrative, offering hope amidst the turbulent backdrop of post-Brexit Britain. Critics highlight its humour, grace, and transcendental writing, calling it a light-footed meditation on time, love, and current events. The novel has been described as experimental, energetic, and incapable of dullness, making sense of contemporary issues with poetic elegance.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241973318

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 31 August 2017

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Penguin Books Ltd

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 192g

Pages: 272

Collections

2025 Best Sellers Ali Smith Best Sellers at Book Hero Fiction General Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Literary Fiction Moving Day Sale Moving Day Sale: Books Moving Day Sale: General Fiction New Release Fiction New Zealand's Best Selling Books Penguin Books Series: Seasonal Quartet

About the Author

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.

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