White Teeth by Zadie Smith

White Teeth

Zadie Smith

They say little is good - well, bigger is better. White Teeth has 542 pages and that's a big book, covering big issues - suicide for starters, plus drugs, fanatical groups (racial and religious), the war, animal experimentation .... Serious stuff, but would you believe the biggest impact the book makes comes from its massive helping of humour throughout. Unputdownable.

Extract
'Pah. It just goes to show,' said Alsana, revealing her English tongue, 'you go back and back and back and it's still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe. Do you think anybody is English? Really English? It's a fairy tale.'
Parallels
  • Life isn't all Ha Ha Hee Hee by Meera Syal
  • East is East - the film
  • A House for Mr Biswas by V S Naipaul