Shire

“You will want to read this book at least three times: once in a headlong rush of fandom; then with an internet connection and a dictionary of poetic terms; and finally in a darkened room with the phone switched off and time to savour Smith’s delicious, playful use of language. A truly bewitching collection” - Katy Guest, Independent on Sunday

“Smith is a trickster, an etymologist, a fantasist, a pun freak, an ontologist… a wordsmith to the very smithy of her soul, she is at once deeply playful and deeply serious” - The New York Times

In four short stories – fusions of poetry – Ali Smith pays tribute to the sources, the people and the places which produce and nurture life and art. In an opening up of norths and souths, she traces unexpected conduits between Cambridge and the north of Scotland. Like all of Ali Smith’s work, here spot-lit by Sarah Wood’s delicate art, this is a book that will blow fresh air through the mind and set readers’ pulses racing.