In 2012, Ali Smith delivered the Weidenfeld lectures on European comparative literature at St. Anne's College, Oxford. Those lectures, presented here, took the shape of discursive stories that refused to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form. Thus, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted--literally--by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. A hypnotic dialogue unfolds between storytelling and...

La historia universal reúne doce historias que recorren un año completo. Ali Smith es una de las mejores escritoras del Reino Unido. Este libro, en el que nos encontramos con algunos de sus mejores textos, contiene doce cuentos en los que el amor, la tristeza y, muy especialmente, los libros y los libreros son los protagonistas. Doce cuentos que recorren un año completo, comenzando en febrero, el mes en que transcurre el primero, «La historia...

At a dinner party in the posh London suburb of Greenwich, Miles Garth suddenly leaves the table midway through the meal, locks himself in an upstairs room, and refuses to leave. An eclectic group of neighbors and friends slowly gathers around the house, and the story of Miles is one told from the points of view of four of them: a woman in her forties called Anna, a man in his sixties called Mark, a woman in her eighties called May, and a ten-year-old...

La cuarta novela del Cuarteto estacional del finalista del Premio Man Booker, Ali Smith, es "un poema en prosa en alabanza de la memoria, el perdón, la broma y aprovechar el momento" (The New York Times) En el presente, Sacha sabe que el mundo está en problemas. Su hermano Robert sólo es un problema. Su madre y su padre están teniendo problemas. Mientras tanto, el mundo está en crisis, y la verdadera debacle ni siquiera ha comenzado todavía....

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith's remix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold. It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Funny and fresh, poetic and political, here is a tale of change for the modern world....

"From the Man Booker-shortlisted and Baileys Prize-winning author of How to be both: a breathtakingly inventive new novel--about aging, time, love, and stories themselves--that launches an extraordinary quartet of books called Seasonal. Readers love Ali Smith's novels for their peerless innovation and their joyful celebration of language and life. Her newest, Autumn, has all of these qualities in spades, and--good news for fans!--is the first installment...

"From the Man Booker Prize shortlisted-author of the brilliant Seasonal Quartet series-a major new novel that promises to capture the present moment with Ali Smith's genius and bold spirit. "A story is never an answer. A story is always a question." Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future?...

For a thousand years the mages of the Empire have flourished through sorcery. But an ancient spell forged by the semi-divine simurgh is draining magic from the world. They call it the Ban. And the Emperor dares not defy the simurgh. The decision might not be the Emperor's for long. Powerful lords in distant lands are taking preserving sorcery into their own hands. One particular sailor, Akai, is thrilled to help a lord on just such a quest. Though...

"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 unraveling 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...

We can go on with our life's future in our hands, which aren't big enough for all the problems we are going to endure. Life's challenges have to have spiritual guidance at all times. We can't assume our family friends and co-workers etc will have our answers. Sometime our Pastor, Deacons and Elders will not be able to help us they may be able to comfort us during a tragic time but only God have all the answers. God will allow tragic times to enter...