The book that Zadie Smith recommends to everyone | The Graham Norton Book Club on Audible
(bewitching music)
- What is the book that got you into reading?
- It's so hard to answer these questions.
I was really trying to think about it.
- Don't think too much, really.
(Gordon laughs)
It's just the Graham Norton Book Club.
- I think it's probably "George's Marvelous Medicine."
It's definitely dull.
- Okay. - I think-
I just was completely thrilled.
But like every English child, they just blew my mind.
- Okay, so dull got you in.
What is the book you wish your name was on the front off?
- I'm gonna give you a boring answer to this, too.
It doesn't make any sense to me as a question.
I can't, books are so closely tied to their people.
It literally doesn't make sense to me.
(Graham laughs) Books I envy-
There's a book called "The Blue Flower"
by Penelope Fitzgerald, it's a historical novel.
And it's just
lovely.
Like, it's just a thing of complete perfection.
I really envy short novels,
the kind of novels I seem incapable of writing.
(Graham laughs) A short, elegant novel.
- Okay.
And is there a book you gift to people or recommend
regularly?
- I've been recommending a lot
this book by Annie Ernaux, she's a French writer.
She's now 80, I think.
She's from a kind of working class French background.
And she writes these novels
about being alive the past 80 years.
And they're just like little snapshots from her life.
And I find them like, unbearably moving.
It's like the long view, the years.
Yeah, it's a great book.
(bewitching music)
