Translating paintings into words

Playful, mind-expanding, dark, funny and endlessly rewarding, Ali Smith’s dystopian parable of an authoritarian future was one of the most talked-about new books when published in hardback last year. To mark the appearance of Gliff in paperback, Smith returned to the shop to talk about it with film-maker Sarah Wood.

They also spoke about So in the Spruce Forest, an essay originally written for ‘Edvard Munch: Trembling Earth’, an exhibition in 2023 in Oslo which has now appeared in book form, beautifully printed by the Munch Museum.