How to Be Both
British novelist, born 1962. Won the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2015 and the Costa Novel Award in 2005 and 2014.
How to Be Both is a 2014 novel by Ali Smith. It won the Costa Novel Award in 2014 and the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2015.
On 5 of the 18 lists it was eligible for.
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At a glance
- Author
- Ali Smith
- First published
- 2014
- Length
- 384 pages (UK paperback)
- Awards
- Booker Prize shortlist, 2014
- Costa Novel Award winner, 2014
- Women's Prize for Fiction winner, 2015
- Genre
- Literary fiction, Postmodern
Is How to Be Both worth reading?
5 of the 18 best-of lists it could have made include it, among them the Costa Novel Award and the Women's Prize for Fiction.
| List | Place | Original |
|---|---|---|
| 100 novels that shaped our world (BBC Arts, 2019) | Listed | See the list |
| Booker Prize (winners and shortlists) (Booker Prize Foundation, 2014) | Shortlist | See the list |
| Costa (Whitbread) Novel Award (winners and shortlists) (Costa, 2014) | Winner | See the list |
| The 100 best books of the 21st century (The New York Times, 2024) | No. 99 | See the list |
| Women's Prize for Fiction (winners and shortlists) (Women's Prize Trust, 2015) | Winner | See the list |
Best edition of How to Be Both
The edition we link to is the Penguin paperback (2015), 384 pages.
- Publisher
- Penguin (paperback, 2015)
- Pages
- 384
- ISBN
- 9780141025209
How critics, prizes and readers rate How to Be Both
Prize juries rate it most highly: it earned 53% of the points available on prize lists, against 29% on critics' lists and 0% on readers' and booksellers' lists.
Share of the available points it earned on each kind of list it was eligible for. How the scores work
Books like How to Be Both
If you liked How to Be Both, try The Accidental, Autumn or Hotel World.
