![]() Despite all the right elements, however, sometimes good books don’t properly translate from paper to ears. On the page, Smith’s collection is delightfully intriguing as narrator, the author’s across-the-pond accent lilts and charms. Lawrence to credit card theft in “The Human Claim,” to faulting a long-dead author in a failing contemporary marriage in “The Ex-Wife.” In between stories, Smith adds interludes from friends and writers who exalt the power of words, books, and especially public libraries, which provide the access to such literary treasures. The dozen stories in Ali Smith’s ( How To Be Both) latest collection share a common characteristic: a contagious sense of wordplay, from obscure etymology (“buxom” originally meant “obedient, compliant, gracious”) in “Last,” to multiple meanings of “fraud” linking D.H. ![]()
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