There But For The

Fusing Keatsian mists and mellow fruitfulness with the vitality, the immediacy and the colour hit of Pop Art - via a bit of skullduggery - Autumn is a witty excavation of the present by the past. Autumn is a take on popular culture and a meditation in a world growing ever more bordered: what constitutes richness and worth?

Originally four lectures given by Ali Smith at Oxford University, Artful is a tidal wave of ideas in four thematically organised bursts of thought: On Time, On Form, On Edge and On Offer and On Reflection. Refusing to be tied down to either fiction or the essay form, Artful is narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, the writer of a series of lectures about art and literature. Full of both the poignancy and humour of fiction and all the sideways insights and jaunty angles you would expect from Ali Smith’s criticism

Why are books so very powerful? The stories in this collection are about what we do with books and what they do with us: how they travel with us and shock us, change us and challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once and how they remind us to pay attention to the world that we make. With this brilliantly inventive collection, Ali Smith joins the campaign to save our public libraries and celebrate their true place in our culture and history.

Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and true identity, how they shape us and how we can survive them. Moving from Northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe or makes a person truly free.

Award-winning poet and rapper Kate Tempest's electrifying debut novel takes us into the beating heart of the capital in this multigenerational tale of drugs, desire and belonging. It gets into your bones. You don't even realise it until you're driving through it, watching all the things you've always known and leaving them behind. Young Londoners Becky, Harry and Leon are leaving town in a fourth-hand Ford Cortina with a suitcase full of money.