ABCD Reads "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith

ABCD Reads "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith.

[RESULTS of the poll for this event]

:: ABOUT THE BOOK ::
"This wise, hilarious novel reminds us why Zadie Smith has rocketed to literary stardom. On Beauty is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars-on both sides of the Atlantic-serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political. Full of dead-on wit and relentlessly funny, this tour de force confirms Zadie Smith's reputation as a major literary talent." (from Goodreads)

"The opening sentence of Zadie Smith's glorious new novel announces the book's provenance: "One may as well begin with Jerome's e-mails to his father" -- an echo, of course, of the opening sentence of E.M. Forster's 1910 novel, "Howards End," which began, "One may as well begin with Helen's letters to her sister."
Although the plot of "On Beauty" hews remarkably closely to "Howards End," Ms. Smith has managed the difficult feat of taking a famous and beloved classic and thoroughly reinventing it to make the story her own. She has taken a novel about Edwardian England -- about class and the competing claims of idealism and money, about a country on the brink of the social upheavals of World War I -- and used it as a launching pad for a thoroughly original tale about families and generational change, about race and multiculturalism in millennial America, about love and identity and the ways they are affected by the passage of time." (from The New York Times)

:: ABOUT THE EVENT ::
You are welcome to arrive 30 minutes before the event and stay 30 minutes or longer afterward to connect with other attendees outside the book talk.

Please ensure you have read the book before attending (though finishing any book is not a barrier to participating, as long as you don't mind spoilers).

First-time attendees can join for free. If the event is full, we maintain an unofficial waitlist. Please send Michael a direct message for more information, in either case.

We request a $3 contribution from regular attendees to help cover our monthly meetup costs.

:: ABOUT OUR NEXT BOOK ::
At the end of each event, we will ask for nominees for our next book. If you have a good one in mind, please ensure it is between 200-400 pages long, available from the Toronto Public Library, and counts as contemporary literary fiction (though these are not hard and fast rules). When enough nominees are collected, Michael will send the members a direct message with a link where you can vote.