Books by Ali Smith
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review 1: Ali Smith has such a distinctive voice that it's hard to compare this with other short story collections. It's almost impossible to imagine anyone else having written a single one of these. She constantly plays with form and structure, subverting expectations and derailing tradit...
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review 1: Highly recommendable, better books of the year, short-listed for Booker prize, could've easily won it. Two parallel stories, order depending on the copy. The first one about a renaissance artist and his art, the second about a teenager in the 1960s who's overcoming the death of h...
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review 1: Olipa kiehtovalla tavalla pimeä kirja, todella erikoinen! Aivan hersyviä yksittäisiä kohtauksia, kielellistä ilotulitusta kannesta kanteen. Kirja oli niin täynnä riimittelyä ja kielellä leikkimistä, että alkoi kyllä käydä sääliksi kääntäjää. Toisaalta tulin kiinnostuneeksi siitä,...
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review 1: Having heard a lot about how good Ali Smith is, I was pleased to find second-hand copies of this book and The Accidental. I love short stories so read this first.How disappointing.I found the writing very self consciously clever and felt totally uninvolved. Perhaps I'm just not c...
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review 1: I wasn't really interested in most of the stories in this collection, but then I've never read a short story collection in which every story was equally intriguing. I felt they went over my head.The title itself is self-consciously literary, since highly literate writerly types f...
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review 1: The problem with short story collections is that they can be so hit and miss, and that is definitely true here. I was indifferent to many of Smith's pieces, and some (True Short Story and The Child, for example) erred too far on that side of that overly knowing, smug cleverness o...
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review 1: There But for the is a typical Ali Smith book - clever, funny (if you're a fan of jokes and puns) and an educational experience as well. I can guarantee that you'll learn and be entertained in the process. The plot is typical Ali Smith as well. A man locks himself up in a room f...