On Beauty: A Novel (Courtney Novels)

by Zadie Smith

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

Winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction, another bestselling masterwork from the celebrated author of Swing Time and White Teeth

"In this sharp, engaging satire, beauty's only skin-deep, but funny cuts to the bone." —Kirkus Reviews

Having hit bestseller lists from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle, this wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent.

• ISBN10: 0143037749
• ISBN13: 9780143037743
• Publish Date: 29 August 2006 (first published 1 September 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Penguin USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 464
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143037743

Reviews

[clementine]

This is such a tricky one for me! I really admire Zadie Smith's prose, and her ability to construct believable characters is second to none. I loved the focus on academic pretension - Howard and Claire were simply insufferable with all their obfuscating phrases so symptomatic of the insular academic world. But I couldn't help but feel that the point of this book was to show how clever it was. It felt very smug! Maybe that was the point, though. It also felt a bit scattered, almost a series of vignettes that never fully came together. I felt this way about Smith's NW too - the end just sort of fizzled despite the promise of her obvious talent. White Teeth remains, by far, my favourite of her novels, and now I'm left wondering if my love for that book is a sad one-off. I'll probably press on with her work, though, because White Teeth gives me such hope.

[jamiereadthis]

If I could strangle a book I’d strangle this book.