Recommendations based on Winterby Ali Smith

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. Autumn

    by Ali Smith
    A novel about the friendship between an elderly man and a young woman, exploring themes of memory, time, and the changing of seasons.

    Daniel Gluck, a 101-year-old former songwriter, lies asleep and dreaming in his care home. He is regularly visited by 32-year-old Elisabeth Demand, who had been his next door neighbour as a young ... (Wikipedia)

  2. How to Be Both

    by Ali Smith
    Exploring duality and interconnectedness through the life of a girl and a Renaissance artist.

    Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A true original, she is a one-of-a-kind literary sensation. Her novels consistently ... (Goodreads)

  3. Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

    by Carmen Maria Machado
    Collection of surreal stories exploring the complexities of gender, sexuality and identity.

    In Her Body and Other Parties , Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her ... (Goodreads)

  4. Hot Milk

    by Deborah Levy
    A woman's quest for answers to her mysterious, chronic illness.

    Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's unexplainable illness. She's frustrated with Rose and her constant complaints but utterly ... (Goodreads)

  5. Home Fire

    by Kamila Shamsie
    A family torn apart by tragedy, facing the choices of loyalty, love and politics.

    Isma is free. After years of watching out for her younger siblings in the wake of their mother’s death, she’s accepted an invitation from a mentor in America that allows her to resume a dream long ... (Goodreads)

  6. Tin Man

    by Sarah Winman
    A story of friendship, love, and loss as three characters navigate life-altering decisions.

    This is almost a love story. Ellis and Michael are twelve when they first become friends, and for a long time it is just the two of them, cycling the streets of Oxford, teaching themselves how to ... (Goodreads)

  7. Lincoln in the Bardo

    by George Saunders
    A spiritual exploration of death, exploring the afterlife through the eyes of President Lincoln.

    In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by ... (Goodreads)

  8. Ragtime

    by E.L. Doctorow
    Interweaving stories of disparate individuals as they navigate the changing social and cultural landscape of early 20th century America.

    The novel centers on a wealthy family living in New Rochelle, New York , referred to as Father, Mother, Mother's Younger Brother, Grandfather, and 'the little boy', Father and Mother's young son. The ... (Wikipedia)

  9. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

    by Helen Oyeyemi
    A collection of interconnected short stories exploring the themes of love, identity, and the power of keys and locks.

    The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret—Oyeyemi’s keys not only unlock elements of her characters’ lives, they promise further labyrinths on the other side. In “Books and Roses” ... (Goodreads)

  10. The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock

    by Imogen Hermes Gowar
    A merchant acquires a mermaid and exhibits her to high society, leading to an unexpected relationship with a courtesan.

    One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock finds one of his captains waiting eagerly on his doorstep. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid. As gossip spreads ... (Goodreads)

  11. Stoner

    by John Williams
    An academic's life of quiet desperation, finding solace in literature.

    William Stoner is born on a small farm in 1891. After high school, the county agent advises he go to agriculture school. Stoner enrolls in the University of Missouri , where all agriculture students ... (Wikipedia)

  12. The Incendiaries

    by R.O. Kwon
    A powerful story of love, faith, and loss. A young woman becomes involved in a cult and a bombing plot, while her boyfriend tries to save her.

    Three people meet at Edwards University in Noxhurst, a fictional town in upstate New York: Phoebe Lin, the American daughter of two South Koreans, John Leal, a mysterious half-Korean Edwards drop-out ... (Wikipedia)

  13. Ghost Wall

    by Sarah Moss
    A teenage girl joins an archaeological reenactment of Iron Age Britain, but the experiment takes a dark turn.

    In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the ... (Goodreads)

  14. Elmet

    by Fiona Mozley
    A family living off the grid in rural England faces threats from the outside world. A haunting exploration of violence, loyalty, and love.

    The narrator who speaks in the sections in cursive seems to be looking for somebody against a modern landscape of highways, lorries and café stopovers. We will come to realise that this is Daniel, ... (Wikipedia)

  15. Exit West

    by Mohsin Hamid
    Reflection on displacement and immigration as two refugees traverse the world in search of a new life.

    Nadia and Saeed meet when they are working students in an unnamed city. Saeed is more conservative and still lives at home, as custom generally requires, but the more independent Nadia has chosen to ... (Wikipedia)

  16. The Secret History

    by Donna Tartt
    A small group of misfit college students uncover a sinister secret and their lives become entangled with dangerous consequences.

    Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the ... (Goodreads)

  17. The Shipping News

    by Annie Proulx
    A man's attempt to rebuild his life in a small Newfoundland town, discovering compassion and joy.

    The story centers around Quoyle, a newspaper reporter from upstate New York , whose father had emigrated from Newfoundland . Shortly after his parents' joint suicide, Quoyle's unfaithful and abusive ... (Wikipedia)

  18. Giovanni's Room

    by James Baldwin
    A man's struggle for identity and acceptance amidst a tumultuous romantic relationship.

    David, a young American man whose girlfriend has gone off to Spain to contemplate marriage, is left alone in Paris and begins an affair with an Italian man, Giovanni. The entire story is narrated by ... (Wikipedia)

  19. The Bookshop

    by Penelope Fitzgerald
    A woman's struggle to open a bookshop in a small English town in the 1950s.

    In 1959 Florence Green, a kindhearted widow with a small inheritance, risks everything to open a bookshop - the only bookshop - in the seaside town of Hardborough. By making a success of a business ... (Goodreads)

  20. Future Home of the Living God

    by Louise Erdrich
    A pregnant woman embarks on a journey to find safety in a world of deteriorating evolution.

    Louise Erdrich paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event in this dystopian ... (Goodreads)

  21. The Silence of the Girls

    by Pat Barker
    A retelling of the Trojan War from the perspective of Briseis, a captured queen and slave. It explores the silenced voices of women in history.

    The plot begins when Greeks led Achilles sack Lyrnessus , describing the looting and burning of the city, the massacre of its men and the abduction of its women including Briseis , the childless wife ... (Wikipedia)

  22. Maurice

    by E.M. Forster
    A young man's journey of self-discovery and acceptance of his sexuality.

    Maurice Hall, age fourteen, discusses sex and women with his prep-school teacher Ben Ducie just before Maurice progresses to his public school. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the novel, as ... (Wikipedia)

  23. Grief is the Thing with Feathers

    by Max Porter
    A family's journey of dealing with the death of a loved one, discovering hope and comfort along the way.

    In a London flat, two young boys face the unbearable sadness of their mother's sudden death. Their father, a Ted Hughes scholar and scruffy romantic, imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and ... (Goodreads)

  24. Manhattan Beach

    by Jennifer Egan
    A female-led story of crime, courage and sacrifice set in 1940s Brooklyn.

    Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea ... (Goodreads)

  25. Home

    by Marilynne Robinson
    A family's saga of tragedy and redemption, narrated in a lyrical and thought-provoking manner.

    Home parallels the story told in Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead. It is a moving and healing book about families, family secrets, and the passing of the generations, about love and death and ... (Goodreads)

  26. Saga, Volume 6

    by Brian K. Vaughan
    The sixth installment of the epic space opera graphic novel series, following the lives of a family caught in the midst of an intergalactic war.

    After a dramatic time jump, the three-time Eisner Award winner for Best Continuing Series continues to evolve, as Hazel begins the most exciting adventure of her life: kindergarten. Meanwhile, her ... (Barnes & Noble)

  27. The Days of Abandonment

    by Elena Ferrante
    An exploration of womanhood and psychological turmoil in the aftermath of a broken marriage.

    The whole story is based on the sudden end of a seemingly solid, happy marriage. Olga, a stay at home mother in her late 30s, is told by her husband Mario that he is leaving her and their two ... (Wikipedia)

  28. The Golden Notebook

    by Doris Lessing
    A woman's journey of self-discovery and reflection, exploring freedom, identity and relationships.

    The Golden Notebook is the story of writer Anna Wulf, the four notebooks in which she records her life, and her attempt to tie them together in a fifth, gold-coloured notebook. The book intersperses ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Saga, Volume 5

    by Brian K. Vaughan
    Intergalactic war between two opposing species, testing the limits of family loyalty.

    Multiple storylines collide in this cosmos-spanning new volume. While,Gwendolyn and Lying Cat risk everything to find a cure for The Will, Marko makes an uneasy alliance with Prince Robot IV to find ... (Barnes & Noble)