NW

Leah, Felix and Keisha all grew up on the same estate in North West London. In different ways, they all work to escape where they've come from. They quickly realise that 'it's not where you're from, it's where you're at' is just a hip-hop adage, and their beginnings are never too far away.

Zadie Smith's first novel in nine years is a delight. It's much more than a state of the nation novel, it's much more than a celebration of London - it is a poetic treatise on what it means to truly escape where you came from. Told in three distinct voices in five yearning parts, NW takes us through the lives of Leah, Felix and Keisha. Leah is hustled by a stranger at the door and her confidence in her surroundings is shook; Felix is desperate to make good of his life but the bad vices keep calling him back (interestingly in the only section to truly leave NW) and Keisha rebrands herself as Natalie, a strong independent woman, a mask that hides her true self.

Zadie Smith's writing is beautiful, wry, sad, brilliantly put together. The experimental nature of how each character is written is expertly wrought. It's a special book, one to savour and absorb again and again, one of the year's highlights and a personal best for an already illustrious career.