On Beauty

On Beauty (winner of the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction) is the story of an interracial family living in the university town of Wellington, Massachusetts, whose misadventures in the culture wars—on both sides of the Atlantic—serve to skewer everything from family life to political correctness to the combustive collision between the personal and the political.

"A thoroughly original tale. . . . Wonderfully engaging, wonderfully observed. . . . That rare thing: a novel that is as affecting as it is entertaining, as provocative as it is humane." —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A thing of beauty. Oh happy day when a writer as gifted as Zadie Smith fulfills her early promise with a novel as accomplished, substantive and penetrating as On Beauty." —The Los Angeles Times

"Smith's specialty is her ability to render the new world, in its vibrant multiculturalism, with a kind of dancing, daring joy. . . . Her plots and people sing with life. . . . One of the best of the year, a splendid treat. " —Chicago Tribune

"Short-listed for [the 2005] Man Booker Prize, On Beauty is a rollicking satire. . . . A tremendously good read." —San Francisco Chronicle