The Most Addictive Books of the Last 25 Years
Here they are, in no particular order: the books we passed on to our closest friends,
fought over at book club, lugged with us on every move and think about still. You can
view the full list or start with...
9 of 34
White Teeth
By Zadie Smith
464 pages;
Vintage
Because wildly smart novels never go out of style.
In her daring debut novel, Zadie Smith takes us straight to
1970s multicultural London. At the center of this sprawling tale are two
unlikely friends who met while serving in WWII: Englishman Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal, a Muslim from Bangladesh. From the very
first page, when Archie's suicide attempt is thwarted by a chain of events
involving pigeon poop, we understood that this was no ordinary book.
("While he slipped in and out of consciousness, the position of the
planets, the music of the spheres, the flap of a tiger moth's diaphanous wings
in Central Africa, and a whole bunch of other stuff that Makes Shit Happen had
decided it was second-chance time for Archie.") Smith's wit and audacity is simply irresistible—as she had written entirely in the language of charisma.
— Dawn Raffel
Published 04/03/2015