Oh I have friends who absolutely cannot stand her writing so you are not alone! TBH its my first book of hers, and I bought it for the cover design (🫠) Her writing is definitely like nothing I’ve read before but I really loved how chilling and dystopian this book felt, plus she plays cleverly with words and symbols which I also enjoyed. Definitely not my usual reading style at all but will give Autumn a go and see if she was a ‘one book wonder’ for me!
Buying a book for the cover design is not a crime - we’ve all done it! Ok I’m interested in Gliff being so chilling and dystopian - Autumn was very much reflective and maybe slightly dystopian (?) but in a way I couldn’t quite seem to grasp. I agree she plays cleverly with words and symbols! I’ll be interested to hear if Smith is a one book wonder for you too! I hope you had a lovely Xmas Nicole xxx
I’ve been intrigued by the Celia Dale so it’s great to hear you speak so highly of it. I was also just speaking about how I haven’t read any Ali Smith but I’ve just never been bothered enough so I was a little amused by your experience of her writing. The Vortex is on my shelf and I’m hoping to get to it really soon so I’m looking forward to returning to your review once I’ve read it!
I am a new Celia Dale superfan! I was in awe of the subtly of her writing, so arresting and so good. I’d love to hear what you’d think of her. I’m glad my experience of Smith amused you because god…I hated autumn so much. While I wouldn’t want to talk for you, our tastes are quite similar and I don’t think Smith would be for you either!
I’m really curious to hear what you’d think of The Vortex!! I in so many ways enjoyed it because of the opportunity to learn, but at times I found the narrative really hard - I felt quite conflicted about it.
Yeah I struggled so much. I didn’t mind the literal act of reading it, but I truly had no idea what was going on! I also thought it would be a one off after How To Be Both but now I’m not so sure. I’d be interested to hear if a second attempt is successful for you!!
…. 🫠 I over my dead body wouldn’t recommend Ali Smith to anyone so this is fun!!! Even if you love it or hate it, I’d be intrigued to hear what you think! At least it was from a charity shop xox
I’m excited to share my favs and goals too! Happy New Year Nic! 🩷🩷 I love you and your reading and can’t wait to keep reading with you in 2025 too!
ooooh i’m excited for Winterlings & A Spring of Love, instantly added to my TBR list. also glad to hear that you aren’t HATING Independent People…. :) thanks for your letter, friend!
The Winterlings was such a lovely surprise!! So kooky, so interesting! I’d love to hear what you’d think of it! A Spring of Love also a brilliant surprise - great choices! I am not HATING Independent People yet.. you’ll be the first to know if I do 😉 thank you for reading friend! I can’t wait to read your latest one tomorrow xx
Population of Autumn hate club: Ochuko, Hannah & Martha 😉 I usually love a pretentious vibe so I am still amazed that this pretentiousness didn’t do it for me! I admire your determination to read the whole quartet though - if it picks up & is better than Autumn was, I’ll put on my big girl pants and read along with you like you wanted me too! A pending promise.
Thanks for these! My list of to-read novels in translation grows and grows thanks to you Martha. I also read Smith’s “How to Be Both” and found it dull and gimmicky. She’s considered a master of experimental fiction in the UK. I’ll stick to Virginia Woolf and the other modernists!
Thank you Carrie! I’m honoured to be a source of translation novels to-read for you! Dull and gimmicky is exactly how I found Autumn. Smith is soooo widely loved here it is fascinating - fascinating that someone’s writing who I can’t seem to get on with at all is so admired. It makes me feel like a cultural outsider lol.
I love when you hate something I just love it! I had to go read a sample of Autumn and it sounds insufferable so thanks for saving my time but I do need to know how you kept yourself going when it was so bad? I would have given up 30% in. Glad you had a wonderful balanced December even if that means you only got through five novels 🖤🫶🏻
Hahaha this made me laugh Natalie - I’m glad you love me being a hater so much!! I do it for you 😉 yeah I wouldn’t except you to like Autumn at all so I am unsurprised the sample came across as insufferable (it was).
I managed to keep going for 3 reasons I think - 1) it’s actually a pretty short book all things considered and it was very very ‘easy’ to read, I just had no idea what was happening. 2) I kept holding out that it might just get better. As I said in the review I liked the idea of the friendship being explored, so I kept holding out for more of that which didn’t really come. 3) I read it with friends!! Ochuko asked me if I’d read it with her & another pal and I said yes and we all hated it so had a perfect little group chat to complain about it in! When someone said ‘just wait until you get to this bad bit’ it was like motivation to read it and also revel in the bad. I have never had ‘more’ motivation to read a book I disliked so much! Every other bust from last year was like dragging my dead body over the line to finish it!
Five books is a hit I’m willing to take for a more balanced December! 🖤🖤🖤
Yesss I’d love for you to read Hunchback so we can discuss!!!! It was such a radical, nothing like I’ve read before and shocking novella. Thank you for always reading Haley & being so brilliant in your own newsletter too! Can’t wait for next years reading groups - I’m going to join Yonnondio & maybe one more I just need to have a think!
So intrigued by spring of love?! Devastated to learn we diverge on Ali Smith because you have immaculate taste but I did enjoy the seasonal quartet … even though I never finished Autumn lmao so maybe that one I’d actually hate too and I should just trust you LOL
I think you’d really like A Spring of Love!!! I kinda thought of u when I read it xx
How can u say you enjoyed the quartet when u didn’t even finish autumn?! Liar!! Idk maybe the rest of the quartet is where it’s at and autumn is just a bad egg! I also just think Smith & I aren’t compatible and that’s just the way it is. I’m not sure I have it in me to try her again lmao
you thought of me wow ok why don’t you just propose already 🥰
and yes it is very possible Autumn is the bad egg, or perhaps it is I who is the pretentious bad egg! there are too many books out there for you to force yourself though, it’s time to say farewell to Ms. Ali Smith
I've been tiptoeing around Autumn for what feels like forever and it's kind of nice to hear that I can bump it off my list more or less, at least it's not urgent! Although I will want to try something by Smith eventually... the other four from this month's list are new to me, which is always so so fun! thank you as always Martha and happy new year!!
In my humble opinion, Smith is definitely not urgent! I’d be interested to hear what you think if you tried her eventually. I wonder if some of her single standing work might be a better place to start with? Who knows! Happy to have brought four new titles to your attention - the absolute definition of fun! Thank you always for reading Regan, and happy new year!! xox
OK. This is now becoming the Autumn thread and I am borderline afraid to enter the chat BUT I read Autumn (and Winter) in October and I absolutely adored it (Winter less so). I loved reading about the unlikely friendship between Elizabeth and Daniel. I found it so charming and odd and genuine and I loved that it was forged over and inspired a lifelong appreciation for art - which, to me, is the ultimate savior. When my kid was a toddler, she became really good friends with one of our neighbors who is a truck driver. They would go on a little walks around the building. She could barely talk but always wanted to stop by and knock on his door. She made him a valentine... It was the most pure friendship I have ever experienced - across age and gender - and the book just sent me back.
I also found the book just really emotional and free-flowing AND I know that I loved it this much because I was reading it alongside a bunch of Joan Didion at the time - who felt so cold and calculated by comparison. The contrast is maybe what made it feel so special to me.
So much of our reading is colored by where we are in life, what we read immediately before... I love that we could have such a different experience with the same book. Anything that provokes strong feelings is a winner for me. Make me FEEL everything!!! It's "nice" that I can't stand.
I’m really interested to hear how much you loved Autumn, especially more so than Winter! After reading this comment and the anecdote about your daughter and her truck driver friend (adorable), it makes a lot of sense that you loved it so much. I loved the unlikely friendship too, I just didn’t like the way it was explored? I was desperate for more Daniel and Elisabeth interactions and less reflections on the administrative nightmare that has become the UK post Brexit vote. Age gap friendships are so charming and pure and i can totally see how the book sent you right back to such a lovely memory!
It is always so interesting and worthwhile to see the books that sandwich either side sometimes because they totally affect the reading experience! Expectations vs reality of what you think the book will do / what you want from the novel. The fact that you were reading so much Didion at the time which was feeling so cold and calculated, and then read Autumn which was so experimental and driven almost totally by feeling, makes a lot of sense. I read it off the back of A Spring of Love which was so emotionally complex and clever in the way it told the story, the simplicity Autumn (to me) in many ways felt like a disappointment after it! A Spring of Love was a thriller which has so much build up, anticipation and ultimately reward when you finish it! Autumn is so opposite from a thriller and I think that was a contributing factor.
I love that we could have such different experiences of the same book too! Maybe it’s because Brexit is still so traumatic of a memory (I was 17 at the time, the complete cusp of voting age, and the fact I couldn’t vote for something that will and does affect my life so enormously makes me furious. Brexit fiction isn’t something I want…? Or at least am interested in) Whenever I hate a book, I always wonder if I picked it up at a different time, sandwiched between different books, with different experiences - whether I would still feel the same way? And my answer often is no I wouldn’t! It probably would be different! In a parallel universe, I’d like to be reading all the books I read in such a radically different order to see if I still feel the same! I agree book indifference is the worse - I can’t stand nice either, it’s not a word of any meaning!!
Always love having these really thought provoking and engaging reading reflections with you Petya!! <3 reading is so much more than just the book - and you get that!
Oh I INHALED Ali Smith’s Gliff (sp?!) on holiday last week and I loved it to bits. Just ordered Autumn 💕
No way?! Why did you enjoy Gliff so much? I want to hear from someone who’s enjoyed Smith’s writing because rn… I’m not a fan 😬
Oh I have friends who absolutely cannot stand her writing so you are not alone! TBH its my first book of hers, and I bought it for the cover design (🫠) Her writing is definitely like nothing I’ve read before but I really loved how chilling and dystopian this book felt, plus she plays cleverly with words and symbols which I also enjoyed. Definitely not my usual reading style at all but will give Autumn a go and see if she was a ‘one book wonder’ for me!
Buying a book for the cover design is not a crime - we’ve all done it! Ok I’m interested in Gliff being so chilling and dystopian - Autumn was very much reflective and maybe slightly dystopian (?) but in a way I couldn’t quite seem to grasp. I agree she plays cleverly with words and symbols! I’ll be interested to hear if Smith is a one book wonder for you too! I hope you had a lovely Xmas Nicole xxx
Hoping your 2025 is wonderful!
It's on my list too!
I’ve been intrigued by the Celia Dale so it’s great to hear you speak so highly of it. I was also just speaking about how I haven’t read any Ali Smith but I’ve just never been bothered enough so I was a little amused by your experience of her writing. The Vortex is on my shelf and I’m hoping to get to it really soon so I’m looking forward to returning to your review once I’ve read it!
I am a new Celia Dale superfan! I was in awe of the subtly of her writing, so arresting and so good. I’d love to hear what you’d think of her. I’m glad my experience of Smith amused you because god…I hated autumn so much. While I wouldn’t want to talk for you, our tastes are quite similar and I don’t think Smith would be for you either!
I’m really curious to hear what you’d think of The Vortex!! I in so many ways enjoyed it because of the opportunity to learn, but at times I found the narrative really hard - I felt quite conflicted about it.
Ooo you’ve sold me on A Spring of Love! Ordering!
Hell yeah! I can’t wait to hear what you think!!!
I also really struggled with Autumn 😬 keen to try another Ali Smith in case it was a one off..
Yeah I struggled so much. I didn’t mind the literal act of reading it, but I truly had no idea what was going on! I also thought it would be a one off after How To Be Both but now I’m not so sure. I’d be interested to hear if a second attempt is successful for you!!
Honestly I’m glad to hear you were confused too, I was wondering why I wasn’t getting it so glad I’m not the only one!
I love the cover of Autumn!
Same! I wish I loved the writing as much as the cover :(
Oh noooo I just got Winter by Ali Smith from a charity shop 😅
Excited for your faves round up and your goals for the new year!
Happy new year, excited to keep reading you in 2025 🩷
…. 🫠 I over my dead body wouldn’t recommend Ali Smith to anyone so this is fun!!! Even if you love it or hate it, I’d be intrigued to hear what you think! At least it was from a charity shop xox
I’m excited to share my favs and goals too! Happy New Year Nic! 🩷🩷 I love you and your reading and can’t wait to keep reading with you in 2025 too!
OMG LOL I have only heard a few little things about the season series she did and the premise of winter sounded good! Will definitely report back 🤗🩷
I am sat, ready and waiting for you to report back! Some people in my life have really loved the quartet, so maybe that will be you too! 🩷
ooooh i’m excited for Winterlings & A Spring of Love, instantly added to my TBR list. also glad to hear that you aren’t HATING Independent People…. :) thanks for your letter, friend!
The Winterlings was such a lovely surprise!! So kooky, so interesting! I’d love to hear what you’d think of it! A Spring of Love also a brilliant surprise - great choices! I am not HATING Independent People yet.. you’ll be the first to know if I do 😉 thank you for reading friend! I can’t wait to read your latest one tomorrow xx
I love finding an old gem! Definitely adding A Spring of Love to my list.
Me too! Reissued books are becoming a fast favourite for me. I look forward to hearing what you think - it’s a brilliant book!
Haha you really did hate Autumn 😂. I’m with you girl. I found it pretty grating and pretentious. Still determined to read the whole quartet though !
Population of Autumn hate club: Ochuko, Hannah & Martha 😉 I usually love a pretentious vibe so I am still amazed that this pretentiousness didn’t do it for me! I admire your determination to read the whole quartet though - if it picks up & is better than Autumn was, I’ll put on my big girl pants and read along with you like you wanted me too! A pending promise.
Thanks for these! My list of to-read novels in translation grows and grows thanks to you Martha. I also read Smith’s “How to Be Both” and found it dull and gimmicky. She’s considered a master of experimental fiction in the UK. I’ll stick to Virginia Woolf and the other modernists!
Thank you Carrie! I’m honoured to be a source of translation novels to-read for you! Dull and gimmicky is exactly how I found Autumn. Smith is soooo widely loved here it is fascinating - fascinating that someone’s writing who I can’t seem to get on with at all is so admired. It makes me feel like a cultural outsider lol.
I love when you hate something I just love it! I had to go read a sample of Autumn and it sounds insufferable so thanks for saving my time but I do need to know how you kept yourself going when it was so bad? I would have given up 30% in. Glad you had a wonderful balanced December even if that means you only got through five novels 🖤🫶🏻
Hahaha this made me laugh Natalie - I’m glad you love me being a hater so much!! I do it for you 😉 yeah I wouldn’t except you to like Autumn at all so I am unsurprised the sample came across as insufferable (it was).
I managed to keep going for 3 reasons I think - 1) it’s actually a pretty short book all things considered and it was very very ‘easy’ to read, I just had no idea what was happening. 2) I kept holding out that it might just get better. As I said in the review I liked the idea of the friendship being explored, so I kept holding out for more of that which didn’t really come. 3) I read it with friends!! Ochuko asked me if I’d read it with her & another pal and I said yes and we all hated it so had a perfect little group chat to complain about it in! When someone said ‘just wait until you get to this bad bit’ it was like motivation to read it and also revel in the bad. I have never had ‘more’ motivation to read a book I disliked so much! Every other bust from last year was like dragging my dead body over the line to finish it!
Five books is a hit I’m willing to take for a more balanced December! 🖤🖤🖤
actually laughing out loud at this group chat motivation 😂
Hunchback sounds riiiiiight up my alley. Thank you for always bringing me authors and stories I've never heard of!!
Yesss I’d love for you to read Hunchback so we can discuss!!!! It was such a radical, nothing like I’ve read before and shocking novella. Thank you for always reading Haley & being so brilliant in your own newsletter too! Can’t wait for next years reading groups - I’m going to join Yonnondio & maybe one more I just need to have a think!
Looking forward to your fave books of 2024 post, Martha! So excited to get a sneak peak of your 2025 reading year.
Thank you Jam I’m so excited to share them!
So intrigued by spring of love?! Devastated to learn we diverge on Ali Smith because you have immaculate taste but I did enjoy the seasonal quartet … even though I never finished Autumn lmao so maybe that one I’d actually hate too and I should just trust you LOL
I think you’d really like A Spring of Love!!! I kinda thought of u when I read it xx
How can u say you enjoyed the quartet when u didn’t even finish autumn?! Liar!! Idk maybe the rest of the quartet is where it’s at and autumn is just a bad egg! I also just think Smith & I aren’t compatible and that’s just the way it is. I’m not sure I have it in me to try her again lmao
you thought of me wow ok why don’t you just propose already 🥰
and yes it is very possible Autumn is the bad egg, or perhaps it is I who is the pretentious bad egg! there are too many books out there for you to force yourself though, it’s time to say farewell to Ms. Ali Smith
I do have the ring ready… how did you know?!
Life is absolutely too short to be forcing a relationship with a writer I do not like haha. Farewell Ms Ali Smith!!!
I've been tiptoeing around Autumn for what feels like forever and it's kind of nice to hear that I can bump it off my list more or less, at least it's not urgent! Although I will want to try something by Smith eventually... the other four from this month's list are new to me, which is always so so fun! thank you as always Martha and happy new year!!
In my humble opinion, Smith is definitely not urgent! I’d be interested to hear what you think if you tried her eventually. I wonder if some of her single standing work might be a better place to start with? Who knows! Happy to have brought four new titles to your attention - the absolute definition of fun! Thank you always for reading Regan, and happy new year!! xox
OK. This is now becoming the Autumn thread and I am borderline afraid to enter the chat BUT I read Autumn (and Winter) in October and I absolutely adored it (Winter less so). I loved reading about the unlikely friendship between Elizabeth and Daniel. I found it so charming and odd and genuine and I loved that it was forged over and inspired a lifelong appreciation for art - which, to me, is the ultimate savior. When my kid was a toddler, she became really good friends with one of our neighbors who is a truck driver. They would go on a little walks around the building. She could barely talk but always wanted to stop by and knock on his door. She made him a valentine... It was the most pure friendship I have ever experienced - across age and gender - and the book just sent me back.
I also found the book just really emotional and free-flowing AND I know that I loved it this much because I was reading it alongside a bunch of Joan Didion at the time - who felt so cold and calculated by comparison. The contrast is maybe what made it feel so special to me.
So much of our reading is colored by where we are in life, what we read immediately before... I love that we could have such a different experience with the same book. Anything that provokes strong feelings is a winner for me. Make me FEEL everything!!! It's "nice" that I can't stand.
I’m really interested to hear how much you loved Autumn, especially more so than Winter! After reading this comment and the anecdote about your daughter and her truck driver friend (adorable), it makes a lot of sense that you loved it so much. I loved the unlikely friendship too, I just didn’t like the way it was explored? I was desperate for more Daniel and Elisabeth interactions and less reflections on the administrative nightmare that has become the UK post Brexit vote. Age gap friendships are so charming and pure and i can totally see how the book sent you right back to such a lovely memory!
It is always so interesting and worthwhile to see the books that sandwich either side sometimes because they totally affect the reading experience! Expectations vs reality of what you think the book will do / what you want from the novel. The fact that you were reading so much Didion at the time which was feeling so cold and calculated, and then read Autumn which was so experimental and driven almost totally by feeling, makes a lot of sense. I read it off the back of A Spring of Love which was so emotionally complex and clever in the way it told the story, the simplicity Autumn (to me) in many ways felt like a disappointment after it! A Spring of Love was a thriller which has so much build up, anticipation and ultimately reward when you finish it! Autumn is so opposite from a thriller and I think that was a contributing factor.
I love that we could have such different experiences of the same book too! Maybe it’s because Brexit is still so traumatic of a memory (I was 17 at the time, the complete cusp of voting age, and the fact I couldn’t vote for something that will and does affect my life so enormously makes me furious. Brexit fiction isn’t something I want…? Or at least am interested in) Whenever I hate a book, I always wonder if I picked it up at a different time, sandwiched between different books, with different experiences - whether I would still feel the same way? And my answer often is no I wouldn’t! It probably would be different! In a parallel universe, I’d like to be reading all the books I read in such a radically different order to see if I still feel the same! I agree book indifference is the worse - I can’t stand nice either, it’s not a word of any meaning!!
Always love having these really thought provoking and engaging reading reflections with you Petya!! <3 reading is so much more than just the book - and you get that!