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Glyph

By Ali Smith
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Brief Description
It sounds like Gliff? Well, it's something else altogether. Ghosts don't exist. They don't. End of. Story, however. It is haunting. Everything tells it. It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying story from the past and find themselves making up... Read More
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It sounds like Gliff?
Well, it's something else altogether.

Glyph follows Ali Smith's 2024 novel Gliff and tells a story hidden in the first novel.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

It sounds like Gliff? Well, it's something else altogether.

Ghosts don't exist. They don't. End of. Story, however. It is haunting. Everything tells it.

It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying story from the past and find themselves making up a ghost. Is it imaginary? Is it real?

Then it all starts again thirty years later when Petra, now estranged from Patch, finds a phantom horse kicking the furniture to pieces in her bedroom. What to do? She phones her sister.

In a chiaroscuro dance through our increasingly antagonistic era, Glyph asks if we're attending to the history that's made us and to the history we're making. A funny, warm and clear-eyed take on where we are now, Glyph is about what our imaginations are for and how, in a broken, brutal and divided time, we rekindle care, solidarity, resistance and openness.

This anti-war novel, Ali Smith's most soulful, playful and vital yet, is a work of lightness that goes deep to counter the forces currently flattening the modern world.

A standalone novel, it's family to Gliff (2024).

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780241665596

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 29 January 2026

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Hamish Hamilton Ltd

Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 26.0mm

Width: 142.0mm

Height: 222.0mm

Weight: 366g

Pages: 288

Collections

Ali Smith Best Sellers at Book Hero Crime & Thriller Dystopian Fiction Education & Reference Fiction General Fiction In Stock Books In-Stock Fiction Books Literary Fiction Mother's Day Fiction Mother's Day Gifts New Release Fiction Penguin Books Sci-Fi & Fantasy Science Fiction

About the Author

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women's Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

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