Winter, Ali Smith

If we ever say that there are books within the library which might not appear in the Nature section of a bookstore, but will make you think about the natural world a little differently, there’s a good chance we’re talking about Winter by Ali Smith. It’s the story of four people, strangers and the closest of family, converging in a house in Cornwall over the Christmas holidays. Much of the book is essentially set around the Christmas table, and so suitably the topics range from art to politics to tense family dynamics — all of these constants of life swirled among Smith’s dreamlike prose where figments of the imagination materialise into the everyday almost unquestioned.

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. A writer of fiction, non fiction, short stories and plays she is the author of ten fiction novels including Spring, Autumn and, released later this year, Summer. Autumn was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018.