Gliff

Here is a voice that moves with lightness and precision, where bravery and goodness triumph in spirit over jeopardy and fear . . . Smith is good at fable-ising, and at taking a young perspective in order to question afresh systems and inherited knowledge . . . Smith’s fiction teaches with vitality that there is no such thing as a futile question * Financial Times *
A vivid, alluringly chatty novelist capable of deft and unforeseeable sidesteps . . . Smith’s new novel is a charm . . . Smith excels at the creation of a lost, curious, intelligent mind adrift in a world of surprises and the unforeseen . . . Smith has created a gloriously strange world * Daily Telegraph *
Gliff is one of Smith’s most propulsive stories – a dark adventure with high stakes, which, despite its bleak subject matter, is still a sparklingly crisp read . . . Typically tantalising stuff from one of our most playful writers . . . [Smith] is as frisky as ever, peppering with puns, and making hay with homonyms imbues her characters with this linguistic exuberance . . . A new Ali Smith book is always an event -- Holly Williams * i *
Unendingly playful [and] mind-expanding . . . Gliff draws battle lines between art, language and Big Tech . . . The meaning and meaningless of our words is an overarching theme of Smith’s oeuvre . . . Smith does not tire of the wonder of language [and] has mastered a style that is both disconcerting and utterly humane * New Statesman *
Ali Smith stakes her claim amongst the most inventive living British writers . . . Gliff is another fizzing firework display, with conceptual shenanigans and running prose put in the service of hot-button social issues . . . a freewheeling narrative that mixes jeopardy-laden drama with restless digression on everything from agrochemicals to AI * Daily Mail *
A study, a confrontation, a rejoinder, a folksong: Ali Smith's marvellous Gliff considers the complexities of our present moment and the thorny, bridling potential of possible futures with wit, care and craft. A masterpiece of storytelling about storytelling, exploring the delighting, dangerous power of language and connectivity * The Spectator, 'Books of the Year' *
As usual with Smith, the gorgeous prose will swirl in your head. Gliff is challenging and enigmatic -- Martin Chilton * Independent *
If Smith’s recent books were a handbook for 21st-century life, Gliff is a warning as to what will happen if we ignore their lessons * Observer *
A poetic, dystopian puzzlebox . . . a story about two children who have lost their mother, with moments that are spare and full of powerful feeling . . . Gliff is above all a book that forces you to be comfortable with ambiguity. It will be partnered next year by Glyph, a companion novel which promises to reveal a story hidden in this one. It will be a joy to puzzle it out * Evening Standard *
Ali Smith has never been afraid to take cleverness seriously . . . But the cleverness she celebrates is innate and ordinary. It is human, in other words, and Gliff is the mark of just such a native genius -- Paraic O’Donnell * Guardian *
A witty dystopian puzzle built on ‘unbelievable believable hope' . . . Smith’s worlds are always perfect-pitch, but the genius of Gliff left me blasted -- Eley Williams
Fizzily fresh and vibrant . . . A dark vision brightened by the engaging craft of an inventive writer * Kirkus (starred review) *
One of our most playful and political writers * Guardian, 'Books to Look Forward to' *
Feels like an instant classic -- Anna Bonet * i *
As she takes aim at some of the more worrying aspects of the modern world, Smith employs sublime wordplay, a tribute to language and its possibilities * Daily Mirror *
Entertaining and sophisticated and clever * The Scotsman *
An exhilarating and often startling read . . . Ali Smith looks at a sentence the way a mechanic looks at an old car engine. She takes her wrench and deconstructs an unsuspecting word into its constituent parts, swaps one element for another or adds something she felt was missing, then reveals with a flourish that her word has become a brave new world * Literary Review *
The inimitable Ali Smith returns to beguile . . . Smith movingly explores the notion of resistance, and asks, in a voice full of hope, what a world should, and could, be * Harper’s Bazaar *
A literary collosus . . . Gliff is playful, challenging, and like nothing else we’ve recommended this year! * Bookshop Tales *