Zadie Smith's astonishingly accomplished first novel, available as a Penguin Essential for the first time Early in the morning, late in the century, Cricklewood Broadway One of the most talked about first novels ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.