The First Person And Other Stories Av Ali Smith

<p><b>A form-bending and endlessly inventive collection of short stories - </b><b>from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women''s Prize-winning author of <i>How to be both</i> and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet</b><b> <br><br> ''A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form'' <i>Independent</i></b><br><br> A middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. An innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, we see a narrator, ''Ali'', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and a nymph.<br><br> Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, <i>The First Person and Other Stories</i> effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones in equal measure. One-of-a-kind Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other.<br><br>*****<br><br>''Hurrah for Ali Smith . . . A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is'' <b><i>The</i> <i>Times</i></b><br><br>''Gleefully turns the short story inside-out . . . Smith is such a dazzling author that finishing one of her books is always bittersweet'' <b><i>Scotland on Sunday</i></b></p>