There but for the

by Ali Smith · 2011

At a dinner party in Greenwich, a guest named Miles Garth goes upstairs, locks himself in the spare room and refuses to come out. Four linked sections follow different people drawn into his orbit, among them a ten-year-old girl with a gift for wordplay, as the novel plays on language, history and the idea of belonging.

Books mentioned in There but for the (17)

• The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: “'she took the book down off the shelf, The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. It was about Greenwich and the man blowing himself up in the park!'”
• The Go-Between by L. P. Hartley: “'her old copy of her favourite book off the shelf... it's The Go-Between by LP Hartley'”
• Hamlet by William Shakespeare: “'Words words words, the child said... That's from Hamlet. A play by William Shakespeare'”
• The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare: “'Mark goes to a matinee of The Winter's Tale at the Old Vic'”
• Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence: “'A girl reading Women in Love.'”
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig: “'A man reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'”
• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann: “'A woman reading Death in Venice.'”
• Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: “'A woman reading Heat and Dust.'”
• The White Hotel by D. M. Thomas: “'A man reading The White Hotel.'”
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: “'A girl, looks like a student, reading Slaughterhouse 5.'”
• Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffmann: “'Have you ever read Struwwelpeter? The story of Augustus who would not eat any soup?'”
• A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear: “'Or A Book of Nonsense? Have you ever read Edward Lear's limericks?'”
• In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust: “'Yes, but he's big in A La Recherche, her father said'”
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: “'the author of the book called Robinson Crusoe had a brick factory'”
• The Railway Children by E. Nesbit: “'I can be Bobbie in the Railway Children book'”
• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery: “'I can be Anne of Green Gables.'”
• Reflections on Gandhi by George Orwell: Epigraph: 'The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection...' George Orwell (epigraph)