Zadie Smith's On Beauty

I guess I am one of the few people at this stage to have read Zadie Smith's On Beauty. So I am delighted to see that Zadie was amongst those on the long list for the 2005 Booker Prize - released yesterday. It deserves to win.

Besides getting what you would expect from Smith; excellent prose, beautifully crafted plot and laugh-out-loud humour, On Beauty is truly an original work. For instance, it is the first book I have read that treats hip-hop culture seriously; It also deals with the fascinating subject of the relationship between the US and UK.

It is so much more than a campus novel. The characters are real with very 21st century problems - the action is not restricted to the ivory tower. The author has certainly caught the zeitgeist, just as she did with White Teeth in 2000 - but On Beauty is more than just a grown-up WT: it is of a different order of magnitude.

I can't go on without giving away too much.

Take it from me: On Beauty is serious shit!

It will be published in the UK in early September.