How to be both Audiobook

Quotes

• “Innovative…The book’s high-concept design is offset by the beauty, prowess, and range of Smith’s playfully confident, proudly unconventional prose.”

  — Elle

• “A cutting-edge, even radical rumination on time, language, art, love…Ali Smith is one of our most delightfully experimental writers, in the vein of Jeanette Winterson and even Virginia Woolf. By breaking the constraints of a traditional novel, she reinvents it as an exultant testament to creativity.”

  — O, The Oprah Magazine

• “How to Be Both has a lot more allure than its overall rigor suggests, thanks to the obvious pleasure Ms. Smith takes in creating her peculiar parallels and exploring the questions they raise…It is a synthesis of questions long contemplated by an extraordinarily thoughtful author, who succeeds quite well in implanting those questions into well-drawn, memorable people.”

  — New York Times

• “A mystery to be marveled at…Smith is endlessly artful, creating a work that feels infinite in its scope and intimate at the same time…Her writing is crisp and elegant.”

  — Atlantic

• “Captivating…Your experience of the novel will be different depending on which story you start with. But either way, the revelations and conclusions will be the same. How to Be Both indeed works both ways, demonstrating not only the power of art itself but also the mastery of Smith’s prose.”

  — San Francisco Chronicle

• “British author Smith…a playful, highly imaginative literary iconoclast, surpasses her previous efforts in this inventive double novel that deals with gender issues, moral questions, the mystery of death, the value of art, the mutability of time, and several other important topics…Smith’s two-in-one novel is a provocative reevaluation of the form.”

  — Publishers Weekly (boxed, starred review)

• “John Banks’s acting background is evident in his expressive performance of this experimental novel…Banks’ relaxed performance flows easily from narrative to stream of consciousness to dialogue, giving listeners the space to form connections between the characters and to take in the rather profound meanings of the stories.”

  — AudioFile