To end, my favourite quote from On Beauty: I loved the rich prose, I loved the complexities of the family members, and the themes of academia, race, heritage, poetry, art and belonging, I loved the college campus backdrop, and the literary references woven throughout the often unlikely plot developments.Ī rich and beautiful novel that is vivid and vibrant and messy and complex, it was undoubtedly well worth the wait. With a flawed cast of characters who are often unlikeable – from the obnoxious teenagers to the philandering academics, from the stuffy professors to the spoilt rich kids – a dual setting of an American college town and the grittier streets of London, and utterly compelling writing throughout, there was so much I loved about On Beauty. While the Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, a white Englishman his African-American wife Kiki and their children, Jerome, Zora and Levi – who live in a fictional suburb of Boston Monty Kipps – Howard’s professional nemesis – is a Trinidadian living in Britain with his wife Carlene and children Victoria and Michael. A book that I knew I would love as soon as I started it, On Beauty follows the story of both the Belsey and the Kipps families and their increasingly different yet intertwined lives. On Beauty Book Reviewįirst published in 2005, On Beauty is Zadie Smith’s third novel and loosely based on Howard’s End (yet another book for the TBR pile). Joanna chose On Beauty as one of her Desert Island Books, and spoke about it with such verve and passion, that I started it soon after we ended our call.
One such author, who I’ve been meaning to read for donkey’s years is Zadie Smith – I’ve owned a number of her books over the years, and have at least three of them in my apartment in Bondi – and yet it was only after recording my podcast with Joanna Rakoff – author of My Salinger Year – that I finally got around to doing it.
The list, as it were, goes on, and on, and on. For me, there are many: I’m yet to read James Baldwin I read Agatha Christie for the first time in my thirties, I’ve read no Margaret Atwood, no Barbara Kingsolver, no Zora Neale Hurston.
The bane of many-a bookworm’s life, is the ever-growing pile of books, waiting to be read, and the endless list of authors that we-know-we-should-have, but simply-haven’t-quite-got-around-to-reading-just-yet.
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