Swooningly glorious The Times

Indisputably her best volume Sunday Times

The Bees is Carol Ann Duffys first collection of poems as Poet Laureate. In it she uses her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems of political anger; there are elegies, too, for beloved friends, and  most movingly  the poets own mother.

Woven and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffys subject, sometimes it strays into the poem, or hovers at its edge. In the end, Duffys point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets.

A treasure trove of outstanding stories from 'the best writer of our generation' (Gary Shteyngart) - the perfect gift for the Zadie Smith fan in your life

'She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too' Observer

'Sexy and hilarious. There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained, or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers' Guardian

'Brilliant. Another slam dunk. Street life, patois, music, food, clothes, hair: Smith has her finger on the pulse of life and the utter weirdness of whatever has just become normal. This is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever' Evening Standard

'Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit. This dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about' Independent

Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.