Rating: 
Summary: A Very Off-Beat Offering..
Review: But if it's Zadie Smith,off-beat is her territory. This time the action centers around Alex-Li Tandem,a Chinese-Jewish Autograph Dealer from London. In the first chapter his father dies(at a wrestling match of all places) and things get weirder from there. In pursuit of his idol's signature,a reclusive retired movie star named Kitty Alexander,Alex encounters all types of odd people,friends who doubt his sanity and his other obsession-a "Jewish vs. Goyish" tome he's been writing for years. Uneven,but often very funny,once again Ms. Smith shows her knack for creating memorable charactors and situtations. Not as good as "White Teeth" but still holds it's own...
Rating: 
Summary: Give it a chance
Review: Dreading the very idea of a literary prodigy, I stubbornly refused to read White Teeth. So I arrive at this review without any preconceptions. As determined as I was to dislike this book, I really really enjoyed it from start to finish. Read it very quickly, in three of four days, which is quickly because I'm a busy person. I thought it maintained its momentum to the end. Smith is very comfortable with the language and it shows. I think her writing is a little reminiscent of Martin Amis in style who, in turn, is a little reminiscent of his father, but if that's suddenly a bad thing, you'll have to slap my and call me Betty.
Rating:
Summary: Fine, Contemporary, Black, Humour
Review: Hello. You are on the internet. A little bit of wire dangling out the back of that hard drive somewhere nearby is your link to the world. The world.
It's brilliant, isn't it.
Wire. World.What's that you say? Where's the third W?
Let me see now...ahhh, there it is.
Wire. World. Where.
As in 'Where has it got us?' Zadie Smith has one good suggestion. In fact, in her latest book, The Autograph Man, Zadie has many fantastic ideas. Much has been said about Zadie's main themes in this new book. I like them. But what I enjoy more are her dark slants on The Now. Fine, contemporary, black humour.
That's four stars. I'll let myself out.
Rating: 
Summary: Zen and the Art of Collecting a Surrealistic Life
Review: Here is a road where Franz Kafka can lead to Virginia Wolf by way of Fats Waller, Bette Davis, and John Lennon with intersections through Jimmy Stewart and Mohammed Ali and almost ending with God. They are all aspects of the mystical Kabbalah for the main character, Alex-Li Tandem, a English Jewish Chinese autograph collector in search of his one true love. It took me a while to get used to the characters and watch the story develop, but once I got through the first 1/3 of the book, I was hooked. There is a certain writing style here that Zadie Smith has developed and it really has a rhythm that matches the enfoldment of the story. I was swept up in a sweet story of young friends in London finding their place in life through the art of collecting autographs. This is no ordinary way of collecting autographs, it is more like a way of collecting life, a way of collecting a piece of the real essence of a person, perhaps their soul.
The issue of what is real and authentic is a definite theme in the relationships between Alex and his friends. This search for the authentic leads to real funny situations and surprising turns and twists.
This is a very contemporary urban multi-cultural hip story of what it is like to search for identity through a very passionate art form. It was philosophy without philosophizing; it was Zen without Zenning, introspective in an outer type of way, a Ying Yang creative fun read.
Rating: 
Summary: yawn !
Review: I bought this book after hearing a short reading, by the author, on the the popular NPR news radio station. Well all I can say is they must have picked the most interesting excert from the book. I was so dissapointed with this book that I wasn't even able to get past the first 15 pages. What a let down.
Rating:
Summary: Torture!
Review: I hate to be the first person to give this book a 1-star rating but after about the first 50 pages or so I found it a TORTURE to read. Zadie Smith is a talented writer, and I had very much enjoyed her first novel, but I could barely make myself finish this one. Some of the problems with it: I didn't like the main character enough to really care about what happened to him. Also, (I'm Jewish myself but) I found all the stuff about Judaism tiresome.
Rating:
Summary: boring
Review: I have been trying to get through this book for a month. The first chapter was pretty good but since then I have not been able to motivate myself to sit down and read it. I am at page 100 and after reading the other reviews I am giving up. It just has not caught my interest. I don't care what happens to the characters. A boring read.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing? I think not
Review: I must represent a minority point of view, but I very much enjoyed _White Teeth_ and very much enjoyed _The Autograph Man_ as well. For one thing, it is frequently hilarious; for another, it gives us one more compelling portrait of contemporary multicultural London (this alone makes Smith a much more rewarding novelist than Martin Amis, I think). Alex's obsession with autographs makes sense in a couple of ways, I think. Autographs are a surviving trace of vanished individuals -- they do not succumb to time and disappear as the individuals who wrote them do, and so serve -- I ought to say, seem to serve -- as a kind of lingering life for the dead. Holding on to autographs is a way of not letting go of the dead, and Alex's inability to let go of his father is (I think) his defining trait. Autographs are also unique to individuals, or we hope they are -- and thus in a world where all communication seems reduced to infinitely duplicable "international gestures" seem to promise that such a thing as authentic selfhood nonetheless exists. Forgery is not just a way of making a bundle, but an undermining of the cherished idea that I am I and you are you. _The Autograph Man_ does not provide precisely the same kind of pleasures that _White Teeth_ did, but should novelists even aim at such a goal? By the way, does anyone beside me think the mysterious Swede with the initials "H. I" on p. 209 must be Archie Jones's uncanny correspondent, Horst Ibelgaufts?
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: I picked this up after reading an article in the Sunday Times about autograph hunters (and this book was mentioned). I'd not read anything else by Zadie Smith at the time. I was really impressed. Her flow of writing is unique, and very easy to read, but retains a depth that I just loved.
That being said, the sections of the book set in NYC where just much more fun - it seemed to me that Zadie was having a good time writing that part of the book - and the only bad thing was that those great chapters made those other chapters pale a little.
Still, its highly recommended.
A couple weeks after finishing this I managed to catch Zadie at a reading in Dublin and was shocked! She was not at all what I expected. She read a very exciting short story. If you can, catch her live too.
Rating:
Summary: Less engaging than White Teeth, but equally rewarding
Review: I read White Teeth, Zadie Smith's first book, in 3 days. Suffice to say I found it to be one of the greatest novels ever. So I anticipated The Autograph Man wildly. I love Smith's writing style - it is quirky, interesting, both poltically relevant and emotionally touching, evocative, endearing and quintessentially modern. At first I was truly enthralled by the Autograph Man, as it set up the basis for a wonderful story with characters to love. I read the first 100 pages in half a morning before reluctantly putting it down. However, it then took me a huge amount of time to get through most of the rest, before I picked up speed at the end again. Thus I have to say that The Autograph Man isn't as engaging as White Teeth, nor is it quite as ambitious. What it did do was continue the excellent writing style of its predeccesor and continue to bring across moods and evoke emotions in the reader. Also, the language and description were beautiful and vivid, showing off Smith's ability as a technical writer as well as as a storyteller and at times the philosophy offered by the characters is beautiful and even valuable. The characters were very endearing, particularly Adam (who to me seemed to be almost perfect in his outlook and personality, not in a ridiculous way, but in a very endearing way). And thus I got attached to this book, perhaps even more to than White Teeth. It was more difficult to get through, but left me very satisfied at the ened.
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