Artful by Ali Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Smith is a genius and her essays/talks on time, on form, on edge, on offer and on reflection but also a love story sent me immediately to buy the book as I handed in my library copy. Starting right off, she quotes Dickens from an old orange Penguin edition of Oliver Twist, then the myth of Achilles, Alice in Wonderland,The Golden Bowl, Jane Austen from an obscure title Jack & Alice. Ozi e vizi a Pammydiddle which I can only find on here in Italian, Walter Benjamin,Joseph Conrad,José Saramago.  I can't stop. I'm scurrying all over the house looking for copies of every book mentioned, placing library orders,expanding my swollen To Read list like the crazy bibliophile and avid poetry reader I answer to.  Who is Gordon Mackay Brown?  GR doesn't know but I must find out. And I haven't even touched on her exquisite prose and wonderful mind, linking literature, art, movies, music. It is all here.


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