Book review: Artful, By Ali Smith

A delightfully tricksy comparative literature lecture-turned-book, this does the seemingly impossible by blending erudite literary and artistic discourse with the most grippingly mournful fiction.

It begins as a ghost story, shape-shifts into a debate on literature, segueing into lit crit on Dickens's Oliver Twist and Greek film musicals, morphing into an illustrated talk on art history, reversing back to the ghost story and forward again.

Those seeking to turn the trendy fad for mash-up into an artfrom should read Artful.