FEEL FREE: Essays

As heard on BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and finalist in the National Book Critic Circle Award, bestselling author of Swing Time and White Teeth is back with an unmissable collection of essays and no subject is too fringe or too mainstream. From social media to the environment, from Jay-Z to Karl Ove Knausgaard, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment, dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary. Arranged in five sections - In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf and Feel Free, she asks: 'Why do people love libraries? What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming?' Reviewing a book by her countryman Geoff Dyer, Smith writes that she is most struck by 'his tone, its simplicity, its classlessness, its accessibility and yet its erudition - the combination is a trick few British writers ever pull off.' An open-minded free spirit, Smith is charmingly digressive, and you will marvel and re-read some of the sentences over and over again. Topics include North West London Blues, Elegy for a Country's Seasons, A Brexit Diary, Generation Why, The Bath Room, Life-Writing, and Find Your Beach among them. 452pp, photos. Remainder mark.