Ali Smith’s Everyman Library

 

 

After we looked at Philip Pullman’s favourite Everyman’s Library classics last week

we thought we would issue another call for inspiration.

Author Ali Smith, whose novel ‘How to Be Both’ won the 2014 Costa Novel Award,

has recently joined the Everyman’s Library advisory editorial board where she offers her

advice on future titles. Here she chooses five books to form her essential

Everyman’s Library.

‘It’s like approaching bookshelf perfection just the thought of having these

books by my side – and with that phrase I’m recalling the quote from the medieval

Everyman play that turns up on the inside of many of Everyman’s publications,

“Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need to go by

thy side”. I’ll have the best, the toughest, the most entertaining, the most

thought-provoking writing in the world, from ancient to modern, from one side

of the earth to the other, from tragedy to comedy to mystery to magical

transformation.A world of books, all tucked under one arm – that’s me accompanied.’

 

The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Metamorphoses by Ovid

The Theban Plays by Sophocles

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark