funbreaker4opal
Written on May 17, 2018
Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
A New York Times Notable Book
From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers...Read more
Winner of the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
A New York Times Notable Book
From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."
Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Zadie Smith's new book, Grand Union, is on sale 10/8/2019.
A New York Times Notable Book
From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays
Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.
Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat."
Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.
Zadie Smith's new book, Grand Union, is on sale 10/8/2019.
- ISBN10 014311025X
- ISBN13 9780143110255
- Publish Date 5 February 2019 (first published 6 February 2018)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc
- Imprint Penguin USA
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 480
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143110255
9780525528753
Audiobook
9780670068388
Hardcover
9780525589280
Paperback
9781594206252
Hardcover
9780241146903
Paperback
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Reviews
empressbrooke
Written on Mar 26, 2018
This is a difficult one to rate. Zadie Smith is someone who is friends with an actual philosopher. She frequents modern art installations and considers them very seriously. She gets genuine pleasure out of 24-hour long arthouse films that splice references to time in other movies together, and 6-volume memoirs that painstakingly detail every mundane moment in the author's life. She sincerely ruminates on Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. The Venn diagram for what Zadie Smith and I like does not have much overlap.
But then there were plenty of lovely essays on things from real life that kept me from putting it down unfinished. She sometimes deigned to talk about more mainstream entertainment - Get Out, Key & Peele, The Social Network, and even going all the way to the completely banal end of the spectrum comparing Justin Bieber to the works of philosopher Martin Buber.
But then there were plenty of lovely essays on things from real life that kept me from putting it down unfinished. She sometimes deigned to talk about more mainstream entertainment - Get Out, Key & Peele, The Social Network, and even going all the way to the completely banal end of the spectrum comparing Justin Bieber to the works of philosopher Martin Buber.