Swing Time – Zadie Smith

Swing Time - Zadie Smith
Swing Time – Zadie Smith

Two girls on a north west London council estate join a community dance class and become friends. We follow their lives as they grow into their teens through their twenties and thirties.

One ends up a single mum living in the council flat she grew up in, the other PA to an international pop star doing Good Works in West Africa.

But, as always, Zadie Smith’s novel is about much more than this.

Author page: Swing Time – Zadie Smith

On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Living in Wellington – an hour north of Boston – the British American Besley family comprise Keke and her art historian professor husband Howard, their three kids – Jerome, Zora and Levi. On Beauty explores relations between the Belseys and Professor Besley’s arch academic rival, Professor Monty Kipps and his family from the summer Jerome spends with the Kipps whilst interning in London through twelve months which see see infidelity, exploitation, maturity, self discovery and death.

Publisher page: On Beauty – Zadie Smith
Review: Howard’s folly – James Lasdun enjoys echoes of Forster in Zadie Smith’s expansive and witty new novel, On Beauty (The Guardian, Saturday 10 September 2005)