SSansFiction
The libraryCollectionsJournalStatsFor authors
Sign inJoin now
Sansfiction,

A digital library for books. Made by readers, for readers.

v 2.0 · 2026
The library
  • Discover
  • Collections
  • Book tracker
  • Journal
  • Stats
For authors
  • SF Links
  • Analytics
  • How it works
  • FAQ
Elsewhere
  • X / @sansfiction
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Contact
© 2026 SansFiction · Digital · GlobalA quiet room for your reading life.
The libraryCollectionsJournalStatsFor authors
Sign inJoin now →
Navigation
Library
Bookshelf
Journal
Discover
Collections
Tierlists
Stats
Profile
Author Page
Link Builder
Account
Sign in
S
G
BooksartistsHow to Be Both
Cover of How to Be Both by Ali Smith

How to Be Both,

by Ali Smith

Ask AI
Rating3.8/ 5
Ratings40
Pages384
Reading Hours8h
Published2014
LanguageEnglish

§Synopsis

01

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • A novel all about art's versatility, borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take. "Cements Smith’s reputation as one of the finest and most innovative of our contemporary writers. By some divine alchemy, she is both funny and moving; she combines intellectual rigor with whimsy" —The Los Angeles Review of Books How to be both is a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real—and all life’s givens get given a second chance. Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else. A NOTE TO THE READER: Who says stories reach everybody in the same order? This novel can be read in two ways, and the eBook provides you with both. You can choose which way to read the novel by simply clicking on one of two icons—CAMERA or EYES. The text is exactly the same in both versions; the narratives are just in a different order. The ebook is produced this way so that readers can randomly have different experiences reading the same text. So, depending on which icon you select, the book will read: EYES, CAMERA, or CAMERA, EYES. (Your friend may be reading it the other way around.) Enjoy the adventure. (Having both versions in the same file is intentional.)

Track this book

Add to your library to track progress and write reviews

§Genres
artists1biography1fiction1history1lgbtq1literary fiction1romance1
§Tags
#dual timeline1

§About the Author

Ali Smith

5 books in catalog

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. Her first book, Free Love, won the Saltire First Book Award. She is also the author of Like (1997); Other Stories and Other Stories (1999); Hotel World (2001), which was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize in 2001 and won the Encore Award, the East England Arts Award of the Year and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award in 2002; The Whole Story and Other Stories (2003); The Accidental (2005), which won the 2005 Whitbread Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the Man Booker Prize; and The First Person and Other Stories (2008). Source

§Editions

Cover of How to Be Both

How to Be Both

eng384 pgs
Anchor20149780307275257
§Genres
artists1biography1fiction1history1lgbtq1literary fiction1romance1
§Tags
#dual timeline1

Metadata

ISBN-139780307275257
ISBN-10110187046X

Editions and availability

Find How to Be Both Ali Smith in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.

Bookshop.orgGoogle Play BooksBarnes & NobleOpen Library

Featured In Lists

Book cover from this collectionBook cover from this collectionBook cover from this collectionBook cover from this collection
Book cover from this collection
Book cover from this collection
Book cover from this collection
Book cover from this collection

100 New York Times Best Books of the 21st Century

100 books