Autumn by Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Man Booker, and also it shares a name with the upcoming season so it’s a very timely read. It was a 4 star read for me, meaning I really enjoyed it a lot and would recommend it to lots of people. 

This book weaves back and forth between the lives of Daniel, a 100(+?) year old man, and his old neighbor Elizabeth, now in her early thirties. Their lives intertwined when Elizabeth was just eight years old, and her mom started using Daniel as an impromptu babysitter. In the present day, Elizabeth deals with the realities facing her country after Brexit and Daniel remembers (through dreams, mostly) many moments from his life, some featuring Pauline Boty and her art.

To say that this book is lyrical is almost an understatement. The writing is so beautiful and vivid, I actually took pictures of some of the pages as I was reading to remember the words. The descriptions in this book are like poetry. Elizabeth is very relatable and I really liked her character. Daniel is somewhat mystical but his dreams really set a scene.

Here’s a description of October: “October’s a blink of the eye. The apples weight down the tree a minute ago are gone and the tree’s leaves are yellow and thinning. A frost has snapped millions of trees all across the country into brightness. The ones that aren’t evergreen are a combination of a beautiful and tawdry, red orange gold the leaves, then brown, and down.” For every month that passes in the book, Smith puts you right there in the middle of it.

Normally I’m not a fan of character and description driven, structurally loose books that don’t have a ton of plot action. This book was absolutely the exception to the rule. The rich, whimsical prose and nuanced depictions of Elizabeth’s life in both post-Brexit Britain and Daniel’s past combined perfectly in this extraordinary work of art of a novel. I would highly recommend it if you like descriptive prose and really feeling a book more than reading it, if that makes any sense. I know I’ll definitely be picking up the next books in this quartet. 

Let me know if you’ve read this book and what you thought of it. I got this book from the library but I kind of wish I had a copy now! And if you decide to pick it up based on my recommendation, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!