On Beauty, Zadie Smith
On Beauty, Zadie Smith
List: $25.00 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.50

On Beauty

Author: Zadie Smith

Narrator: Peter Francis James

Unabridged: 18 hr 48 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 09/08/2005


Synopsis

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth

"In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Reviews

Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.

About The Author

Zadie Smith was born in northwest London in 1975 and still lives in the area. She is the author of White TeethThe Autograph ManOn BeautyChanging My Mind, and NW.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kinga on April 01, 2020

Before we talk about Zadie Smith, let’s talk about me first. Here is something you should know – I was a serious book-worm up until I turned 16 (more or less) at which point I lost all interest in anything that wasn’t parties, boys, alcohol, drugs or sex. There, I said it. For the next five years my......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs on November 21, 2018

The truth in this quote sends shivers down my spine. It's so real, like all of Smith's writing: “Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices......more

Goodreads review by emma on March 20, 2024

sometimes, it feels like your entire emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being relies on liking one single book. welcome to that experience for me. i love the idea of zadie smith, but historically i have not liked her books. my first experience with her wasn't what anyone would recommend. i picked......more

Goodreads review by leah on January 01, 2024

my first book of 2024 being a 5 star?? we are so back......more

Goodreads review by MJ on March 20, 2011

This is a book full of unbeautiful people: obnoxious teenagers, philandering academics, stuffy professors, right-on street rappers, wispy rich kids and more obnoxious teenagers. Zadie takes a scalpel to Anglo-American academic relations, probing away at the race/class issues with her usual mordant u......more


Quotes

"...[A] thoroughly original tale about families and generational change, about race and multiculturalism in millennial America, about love and identity and the ways they are affected by the passage of time. Ms. Smith possesses a captivating authorial voice—at once authoritative and nonchalant, and capacious enough to accommodate high moral seriousness, laid-back humor and virtually everything in between—and in these pages, she uses that voice to enormous effect, giving us that rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty. It's a thing of beauty indeed. In tackling grown-up issues of marriage, adultery, race, class, liberalism and aesthetics, she thrillingly balances engaging ideas with equally engaging characters. As good as she is with big ideas, Smith is even stronger at capturing family dynamics, the heartbreak of broken trust as well as the lovely connections between siblings. —The Los Angeles Times Book Review"In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Reviews


Awards

  • Man Booker Prize for Fiction
  • Orange Prize for Fiction