On Beauty – Zadie Smith

Apparently a homage to Howards End, On Beauty is the story of a washed out English professor, his family, his deadly rival and how it all breaks down deliciously. Its sexier than Smith’s other books, but has the usual lyrical writing you want to nick. Recommended.

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

The story of each member of the Lambert family, and the story of their family. Hilarious, touching and close to the bone. Recommended.

The Hours – Micheal Cunningham

A short, dense book with three women going about a single day. A kind of companion novel to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway, the stories combine and mirror one another – probably requires a re-read. Recommended.

It may have been a mistake to read this right after White Teeth. The Autograph Man is on a completely different scale to its  predecessor, the narrative taking only a couple of weeks and centering around one main character, Alex Li-Tandem, an autograph collector who loses his father in the opening chapter.

Alex lacks charm and his obsession with film star Kitty Alexander is second only to his obsession with himself. Set in London (Mountjoy), the action takes us to New York and back again in search of… something. I never really engaged with Alex, and therefore never really engaged with the novel. There are enjoyable moments, like the set piece where Alex attempts to drown his sorrows by drinking his way through the alphabet:

Beer turned up again in brand name form for F, the spiteful, familiar Gin followed by Hot Toddy, made by Tommy who (with unguessed at athleticism) vaulted over the bar to make it.

The unsatisfying jumbled narrative attempts to bring together the autograph world and Jewish mysticism, and its’ main characters lack of charm, with a large dollop of pointless supporting cast members never pulled me completely. Hard to recommend.

This was kind of like reading Michael Chabon for the first time – I couldn’t wait to finish so I could rush out and read everything else she’d done. Set in London, White Teeth bucks its way over a hundred years or so to tell the story of three London families. But that’s kind of like calling The Simpsons a sitcom about a family of five. All kinds of little non sequiturs pop up, and Smith jumps out of the narrative regularly with a snappy metaphor or observation just to make it clear she’s way smart. You know she’d be great company over a pint. It’s a roller coaster ride that gathers up all the threads neatly just when it seems totally impossible. Recommended.