Zadie Smith

A volume of essays by the author of On Beauty is comprised of top-selected pieces from the past decade and considers a broad range of topics organized under such main categories as "Reading," "Being," "Seeing" and "Feeling."

Occasional Essays

Changing My Mind

'A supremely good read. Smith writes about reading and writing with such infectious zeal and engaging accessibility that it makes you want to turn up at her house and demand tutoring.' Dazed and Confused 'Alarmingly good.' Metro 'Brilliant. She's friendly and conspiratorial, voicing the kind of clever theories we could imagine ourselves holding if only we were as articulate as Zadie Smith.' Vogue 'Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent. In lovely elegiac pieces on her late father Harvey, D-Day veteran and Tony Hancock fan, Smith also delivers some of the most affecting autobiographical writing in any form.' Independent, Books of the Year 'Fascinating. Smith has the gift of showing you how she reads and thinks; watching her do it makes you feel smarter and more observant. Her account of her struggles as an author may be the most authentic, unglamorous description of novel-writing ever put on paper.' Time

zadie smith is a clearly - perceptibly - an intelligent person and an intelligent writer and her essayistic work compiled here, even if she no longer necessarily agrees with it, is a testament to that. i appreciate that she managed to draw me in even when she was discussing / dissecting topics i might have not been invested in previously.

strangely enough, i found out that the second half of the collection was much stronger than the first one which focused more on literature. 'speaking in tongues', 'dead man laughing' and her essay on david foster wallace were standout pieces for me.

Changing My Mind Occasional Essays

Reviews