Read Women discussion

The winner of the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the 2014 Costa book of the year award.

How to be Both intertwines the story of a modern teenager with the (imagined) life of a (real) Italian renaissance artist to examine art, gender, and presumably lots of other things that we'll discover as we read.

Unusually, there are two printings of this book available and each offer a very different reading experience: one printing opens with the teenager's story (Camera) first, and the other opens with the artist's (Eyes). To avoid confusion, I will set up separate Eyes/Camera threads to discuss each section of the book separately and keep this for more general/thematic observations and discussions.

Suggested Questions and Discussion Points
* Which copy of the book are you reading? Eyes first or Camera First?
* Which story do you prefer? Do you think the order you read them in influenced this at all?
* What is the relevance of the cover? (Prior to reading it doesn't seem to fit the blurb at all)
* Does it live up to the hype? Would you have picked this book from the shortlist to win the Baileys/Costa prize? (If you’ve read any others on the shortlists, how did it compare)
* What does the title 'How to be Both' mean? Does it have more than one meaning?


Selection of professional reviews of this book (Potentially spoilery)
The Observer (Camera First)
The Guardian (Eyes First)
The Independent (Camera First)
The Independent
New York Times, Sunday Book Review (Eyes First)
NPR Books
The Washington Post (Eyes First)

To get the ball rolling:

I haven't read this yet and won't be starting until 1 July, but I have picked up my copy already and it looks like I have the 'Eyes' section first. Looking forward to reading this much more now that I've looked up a few reviews than I was initially (reading the blurbs for the shortlisted books I was kind of rooting for some of the others).

Not read any Ali Smith before either so new territory for me.

I wasn't going to read this one because Smith's The Accidental is a book I hated, but they had as an audio at my library, so figured I'd give it a shot.
I've got Camera first.

I hope you like it more than the last one then! It took me a little while to get into this one and it's definitely got a certain style to it that I'd have to be in the right mood for, but I ended up enjoying it a fair bit (rating probably 3.5). Might read another book by her at some point, but she's not jumping to the top of my favourite novelists.

I think Camera first is probably the most accessible version (mine was Eyes first and I spent a fair few pages finding it confusing before I got what was going on) and the one with the more straightforward narrative too (perhaps, it's very hard to judge). Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it - whether you enjoy it/finish it or not!

Yeah Smith has a definite style to her writing. Which I suspect if you click with it then she becomes an instant favorite, it just doesn't click with me.

I just added this to my library's shelf to borrow. It will be about two weeks before I can though. :) Looking forward to joining in.

Was able to get it today. :) Mine starts with Camera

I hope you enjoy! It's a very odd book, and I didn't always got on with the narrators, but overall I liked it much more than I was expecting to.