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Books to help cope with the heat

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

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Books that defined the 2000s

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Features

From sweaty to sultry: why fiction loves a heatwave

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20 books everyone should read in their forties

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Must-read books by women, as chosen by our readers

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Could ‘green noise’ be your secret weapon to reading – and writing – more?

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Children's reading lists

Best children’s books that celebrate difference

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Podcasts

9 things we learned from Zadie Smith and Nick Laird’s Penguin Podcast episode

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In defence of the exclamation mark!

Reading Remedy: what to read to transport you to a good night out

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Reading Remedy: dealing with the end of a friendship

Zadie Smith is the author of books including White Teeth and On Beauty

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Where to start reading Zadie Smith’s books

Reading Remedy: what to read if you're losing track of time

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Reading Remedy: what to read if you’re losing track of time

Zadie Smith: Adult friendships seem hopelessly diluted

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Zadie Smith: ‘Adult friendships seem hopelessly diluted’

Works from Mohsin Hamid, Arundhati Roy, Ali Smith and Zadie Smith selected for Man Booker Prize 2017 longlist

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News

Weirdo Goes Wild

A warm and endearing story about the quiet power of being yourself from Zadie Smith, Nick Laird and Magenta Fox. 
 
Maud - a judo-suit wearing guinea pig and proud weirdo - is off into the wild, as is Kit, her owner. Both are slightly nervous about what they'll find in the great outdoors, but with a pinch of bravery - and a few Signature Moves - they'll make new friends and explore new worlds. 
 
Praise for Weirdo: 
"A sweet, tightly written tale about the benefits of not fitting in, cheered on by Magenta Fox's gorgeous illustrations" The Times’ Best Children’s Books for Summer 2021 
"As cockle-warming as a cuddle from a favourite pet, Weirdo ought to be a smash hit" Observer 
"it's delightful" the i

Zadie Smith (Author) 
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives. The Fraud is her first historical novel. 
 
Nick Laird (Author) 
Nick Laird was born in Northern Ireland in 1975 and was educated at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. He has published two novels, Utterly Monkey and Glover's Mistake, and three collections of poetry, To a Fault, On Purpose and Go Giants. He has also edited Zoo of the New: Poems to read Now, an anthology of poetry, new and old, alongside Don Paterson. 
Laird is the recipient of many awards for his fiction and poetry, including the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. 
Twitter: @NickLaird 
Website: nicklaird.com 
 
Magenta Fox (Illustrator) 
Magenta Fox was born in south-west London in 1994. She studied English at the University of Exeter and since moving back to London in 2015, has been working as a children's book designer. These days she works freelance - illustrating, writing and designing children's books from her flat in south London.

The Fraud

Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, The Oldie, i Paper, The Standard, Washington Post, Independent, Daily Express 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 
ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2024 
 
‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The Telegraph 
 
Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? 
 
In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. 
 
From literary London to the Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic. 
 
‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction?' Michael Frayn 
 
‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind . . . Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times 
 
‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent 
 
‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ Guardian 
 
Instant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

No one understands humans better. As this novel shows, there is no better guide to people and their bottomlessness than Smith herself

This was really delightful. 10/10. Zadie Smith is a genius

Brandon Taylor author of The Late Americans

A novel full of people, ideas, humour, feeling and something like moral truth – the stuff of life

Searingly original [and] virtuosic . . . the book masterfully depicts post-emancipation Britain as it ruptures along faultlines of class and race

The Fraud is unlike anything you’ll read this year: a charismatic, cerebral novel that asks us to consider the greatest fraud of all, that of one man claiming to hold the key to another’s freedom

Affecting and devastating . . . In typical Zadie style, the narrative structure and decade leaping require you to pay attention – but you’re heavily rewarded with the sheer breadth of the novel and its vividly painted characters

A wonderful meditation on truth and falsehood, and the boundaries between fact and fiction

A rich and sprawling novel with a terrific cast of characters, this is Smith at her best

The i Paper, 'Best new paperbacks for summer'

A big, rich saga, tumbling with characters and big issues (feminism, slavery, truth)

The Fraud is a complex mosaic of interweaving plots . . . The novel pulls off the trick of being both splendidly modern and authentically old and the characters are varied and entertaining

Ambitious in both style and subject matter, and bursting with Smith’s trademark sprightly dialogue, The Fraud is also very funny

Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives. The Fraud is her first historical novel.

Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? 
 
In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. 
 
From literary London to the Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.

The Wife of Willesden

WINNER OF THE MOST PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT AT THE CRITICS CIRCLE THEATRE AWARDS 2022 
 
'Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. 
She plays many roles round here. And never 
Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether 
Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife 
Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life 
Story to whoever has ears and eyes . . .' 
 
Zadie Smith's first time writing for the stage, The Wife of Willesden is a riotous twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Wife of Bath's Prologue, brought to glorious life on the Kilburn High Road. 
 
Commissioned to celebrate Brent's year as Borough of Culture 2020, The Wife of Willesden ran at the Kiln Theatre, London from November 2021 to January 2022.

'Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. 
She plays many roles round here. And never 
Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether 
Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife 
Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life 
Story to whoever has ears and eyes...' 
 
Zadie Smith's first play is a joyous re-imagining of Chaucer's classic, The Wife of Bath's Tale. As the crowd in a small pub on the Kilburn High Road stand up to share their stories, the Wife of Willesden is not afraid to bare it all...

Weirdo

Meet Maud: a guinea pig who inexplicably wears a judo suit - and not everyone understands or approves. When Maud is thrown into a new and confusing situation, it takes brave decisions and serendipitous encounters for her to find her place and embrace her individuality. 
 
The charming characters of Magenta Fox, whose work is evocative of Raymond Briggs and Janet Ahlberg, perfectly offset Zadie and Nick's warm, wry prose. 
 
Weirdo is an endearing story about the quiet power of being different by two veteran writers, and introduces an exciting debut illustrator. Together they have created a picture book that adults and children alike will treasure.

Zadie Smith (Author) Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives. The Fraud is her first historical novel. Nick Laird (Author) Nick Laird was born in Northern Ireland in 1975 and was educated at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. He has published two novels, Utterly Monkey and Glover's Mistake, and three collections of poetry, To a Fault, On Purpose and Go Giants. He has also edited Zoo of the New: Poems to read Now, an anthology of poetry, new and old, alongside Don Paterson. 
Laird is the recipient of many awards for his fiction and poetry, including the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. 
Twitter: @NickLaird 
 Website: nicklaird.com Magenta Fox (Illustrator) Magenta Fox was born in south-west London in 1994. She studied English at the University of Exeter and since moving back to London in 2015, has been working as a children's book designer. These days she works freelance - illustrating, writing and designing children's books from her flat in south London.

Meet Maud: a guinea pig who inexplicably wears a judo suit - and not everyone understands or approves. When Maud is thrown into a new and confusing situation, it takes brave decisions and serendipitous encounters for her to find her place and embrace her individuality. 
 
The charming characters of Magenta Fox, whose work is evocative of Raymond Briggs and Janet Ahlberg, perfectly offset Zadie and Nick's warm, wry prose. 
 
Weirdo is an endearing story about the quiet power of being different by two veteran writers, and introduces an exciting debut illustrator. Together they have created a picture book that adults and children alike will treasure.

Abridged Edition

Penguin Readers Level 7: White Teeth (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. 
 
Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. 
 
The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. 
 
Visit the Penguin Readers website 
Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys. 
 
White Teeth is the story of three very different families who live close together in London in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bowdens are part-Jamaican; the Iqbals are from Bangladesh; and the Chalfens are white. The story looks at how people's pasts affect their lives now, and the lives and futures of their children.

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
White Teeth, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future perfect simple, mixed conditionals, past perfect continuous, mixed conditionals, more complex passive forms and modals for deduction in the past. 
 
White Teeth is the story of three very different families who live close together in London in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bowdens are part-Jamaican; the Iqbals are from Bangladesh; and the Chalfens white. The story looks at how people's pasts affect their lives now, and the lives and futures of their children.

Grand Union

A treasure trove of outstanding stories from 'the best writer of our generation' (Gary Shteyngart) - the perfect gift for the Zadie Smith fan in your life 
 
'She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too' Observer 
 
'Sexy and hilarious. There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained, or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers' Guardian 
 
'Brilliant. Another slam dunk. Street life, patois, music, food, clothes, hair: Smith has her finger on the pulse of life and the utter weirdness of whatever has just become normal. This is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever' Evening Standard 
 
'Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit. This dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about' Independent 
 
Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Sexy and hilarious . . . There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained,or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers.

Smart and bewitching, the modern world is refracted in ways that are both playful and rigorous, formally experimental and socially aware... Smith exercises her range without losing her wry, slightly cynical humour. Readers of all tastes will find something memorable in this collection

She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too

The stories in Grand Union address both eternal existential queries and decidedly contemporary concerns.

this is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever

Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit . . . this dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about.

Each story is a new surprise of literary genius that takes the reader on a short journey away from reality . . . A must-read for literary lovers everywhere

In these short stories she is miles and miles ahead, moving the finish line ever further as we are dazzled, knocked sideways by her craft . . . We see a master at work, exercising her vast talent with joy and vigour, reimagining old paradigms whilst maintaining the warmth and authenticity of her inimitable voice. For a writer who has seemingly done everything, it seems that Smith is just beginning

Grand Union seduces with language, acute observation, humour and the warmth of Smith's humanity. It's a startling, energising collection fom a writer unafraid to take risks

An exuberant volume that's bracing, thoughtful and frequently very funny

Tremendous comic writing and snappy dialogue

Smith offers sharp social commentary in this wry collection of stories that takes on the complications of the modern world

Tackles subjects including cancel culture, desire and race with Smith's trademark insight and lightness of touch

In the summer of 1959, an Antiguan immigrant in north-west London lives the last day of his life. 
 
A mother looks back on her early forays into matters of the human heart, considering the destructive nature of desire. 
 
A disgraced cop stands amid the broken shards of his life, unable to move forward into a future that holds no place for him. 
 
A teenager chases spectres through virtual reality, trailed by a little girl with a runny nose and no surviving family. 
 
We all take a much-needed break from this mess, on a package holiday where the pool's electric blue is endless, while political and environmental collapse happen far away to someone else. 
 
Zadie Smith presents a sharply alert and slyly prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Zadie Smith

25th Anniversary Edition

First published in the year 2000, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was one of the most celebrated novels of the new millennium. Adored by critics and readers alike, it remains a perennial bestseller, which still delights with the audacity of its scope and vision, its fresh-minted style, and the wit and warmth of its voice. 
 
Funny, generous and big-hearted, it deals – among many other things – with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle. 
 
A life affirming, riotous must-read of a book, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award.

White Teeth

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From novels to essay collections, here's our guide to reading the award-winning author's work.

Books by Zadie Smith