The Autograph Man Kindle Download + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Autograph Man Kindle Download

In her second novel, The Autograph Man, Zadie Smith has set herself the unenviable task of following up a certain segment of recent literary history. Her first novel, the bestselling, award-laden and much-hyped White Teeth wore its ambitions lightly: an exuberant comic foray into the lives of three disparate families living in suburban north London, it dealt simultaneously--and deftly--with wider multicultural and political motifs. The Autograph Man has a similar ebullience and an equally dazzling panoply of characters. Its hero Alex Li-Tandem is "one of this generation who watch themselves", a Chinese-Jewish north Londoner who is first introduced as a child accompanying his father to a wrestling match between those two larger-than-life scions of 1970s Saturday afternoon television--Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks. When Alex's father dies in the pandemonium surrounding the pursuit of Big Daddy's autograph, the twin themes of the novel are launched--one is the bereaved Alex's search for a replacement to fill the gulf, the other his obsession with tracking down, buying and selling autographs. Alex seeks one autograph in particular and seemingly in vain--that of Kitty Alexander, a fading film star. The route he follows in his search has much to say about the nature of celebrity and the privacy of souls, of fantasy and reality--all narrated in Smith's breathless prose. The Autograph Man plays on many strands and clever observations--in particular Jewishness, goyishness and Zen Buddhism. Smith is a superbly assured writer whose images stick in the mind; for example, Alex's girlfriend Esther has "hair plaited like a puzzle". The dialogue is vivid and there is much humour but at times the convoluted plot threatens to spill over into anarchy and the humour can be self-conscious. Though this does not diminish the entertainment value of The Autograph Man, it does--frustratingly--make it appear insincere. --Catherine TaylorRead More

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  • Amazon

    The Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times.

    Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers in The Autograph Man a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.

    'A glorious concoction written by our most beguiling and original prose-wizard' Independent on Sunday

    'A brilliant comedy with a tantalising throb of mystic philosophy underneath' Philip Hensher, Books of the Year, Spectator

    'A pleasure from the first page to the last' Evening Standard

    'Intellectually agile ... ecstatic inventiveness' Time

    'A classic' Spectator

    'Genuinely funny and entertaining' Guardian

    'Vibrant, highly imaginative' Jewish Chronicle

    'Full of irony, humour, the search for love and the fear of death . . . a touching, thoughtful, deeply felt rite-of-passage novel' Sunday Telegraph

    Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. Her debut novel, White Teeth, won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and the Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize, and was included in TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Her second novel, On Beauty, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has written two further novels, The Autograph Man and NW, a collection of essays, Changing My Mind, and has edited a short-story collection, The Book of Other People.

  • Foyles

    From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, White Teeth and On Beauty'A pleasure from the first page to the last' Evening Standard'A glorious concoctionby our most beguiling and original prose-wizard' Independent on Sunday 'Full of humour, the search for love and the fear of death... A touching, thoughtful, deeply felt rite-of-passage novel' Sunday TelegraphThe Autograph Man follows one Alex-Li Tandem: a twenty-something Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion. From London to New York, love to death, fathers to sons, Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.

  • TheBookPeople

    'The novel is a pleasure from the first page to the last' - David Sexton, Evening Standard. Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. A small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire, it is his business to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, occasionally fake them, and all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the hollow things of modernity - celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. Pushing against the tide of his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold.

  • BookDepository

    The Autograph Man : Paperback : Penguin Books Ltd : 9780140276343 : 0140276343 : 01 Aug 2006 : Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion, this title takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire.

  • Play

    Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. He hunts for names on paper in a huge network of desire collecting them selling them and occasionally faking them; offering people a little piece of fame. To him enlightenment is some part of himself that cannot be signed celebrated or sold.

  • Blackwell

    Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty - something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper...

  • Penguin

    Deeply funny, subversive and splendidly entertaining, The Autograph Man is a whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times.

  • Pickabook

    Zadie Smith, Roderick Mills (Illus)

  • 0140276343
  • 9780140276343
  • Zadie Smith
  • 22 May 2003
  • Penguin
  • Kindle Edition (Kindle Download)
  • 432
  • New Ed
  • Kindle eBook
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