Zadie Smith

Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world.

Stories

Grand Union

Albina Selimovic

There's not even anything original about this malaise: all the citizens of late capitalism feel exactly the same way about time. End scene.

Picked this up for completionist purposes (because my other entry in the Genre Challenge felt a little bit like cheating) and frankly, I probably should not have done that. The audiobook format was also not great for it since the short stories tended to merge into each other.

However, the format might have not been the only issue behind this here. Some of the entries are so short that they barely have time to take hold. I am not opposed to the super-short short story ("The House of Asterion" by Borges in one of my most favourite short stories of all time, after all) but I think some of the ideas here really needed some space to breathe which they simply were not given.

Picked this up for completionist purposes (because my other entry in the Genre Challenge felt a little bit like cheating) and frankly, I probably should not have done that. The audiobook format was also not great for it since the short stories tended to merge into each other.

However, the format might have not been the only issue behind this here. Some of the entries are so short that they barely have time to take hold. I am not opposed to the super-short short story ("The House of Asterion" by Borges in one of my most favourite short stories of all time, after all) but I think some of the ideas here really needed some space to breathe which they simply were not given.

Meghan Navoy

I didn't love this one, couldn't finish it and had to abandon it. Really want to read more Zadie Smith because I know people love her writing. Maybe I just wasn't in the place for a short story collection

Erzählungen

Jenna

(#partner @penguinpress) • I was very lucky to receive an advanced copy of Zadie Smith’s new short story collection, Grand Union. This is the first collection I read for #storyseptember. I really like Zadie Smith in short form! Prior to this one, I’ve only read her novel Swing Time, and it was fine but not a favorite of mine. This one definitely made me more excited to check out some of her other work.

My favorite stories were:
• Sentimental Education, about a girl and her college boyfriend who brings his best friend along to college
• The Lazy River, about British families vacationing in Spain, that is an almost too spot on metaphor for life as we know it with social media
• Escape from New York, which made me really want a post-apocalyptic novel from Smith
• Meet the President!, which made me really want a sci-fi novel from Smith
• The Canker, which made me really want a fantasy novel from Smith

Basically, I loved all of the stories where Smith branched out in genre. She’s such a great writer, it seems that she does so with ease.

This book has sooo many stories in it! There are 19! For me, the large number of stories did make the collection feel a little bit disparate, but for the most part this is an extremely solid collection. If you’re a Zadie Smith fan or looking to branch into her work, I’d recommend it!

In the summer of 1959, an Antiguan immigrant in north-west London lives the last day of his life. A mother looks back on her early forays into matters of the human heart, considering the destructive nature of desire. A disgraced cop stands amid the broken shards of his life, unable to move forward into a future that holds no place for him. A teenager chases spectres through virtual reality, trailed by a little girl with a runny nose and no surviving family. We all take a much-needed break from this mess, on a package holiday where the pool's electric blue is endless, while political and environmental collapse happen far away to someone else. Zadie Smith presents a sharply alert and slyly prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Daryl Houston

I've liked Zadie Smith's work from way back but don't think I had read any of her short stories. These were a mixed bag for me, some quite good and others pretty meh. She's poking at genre a fair bit, and some of this poking is more engaging and successful than other bits. On the whole, I like Smith's longer work better than her shorter work, and I think I'm finding that to be the case for most authors I read these days.

Celestine Taevs-Nakaya

Maisie MacDonald

Marek R

Yasmin

Sane Ramos

Nicholas Barnard

The first ever collection of stories from the bestselling and beloved author of Swing Time and White Teeth 'She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too' Observer 'Sexy and hilarious. There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained, or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers' Guardian 'Brilliant. Another slam dunk. Street life, patois, music, food, clothes, hair: Smith has her finger on the pulse of life and the utter weirdness of whatever has just become normal. This is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever' Evening Standard 'Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit. This dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about' Independent Interleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Grand Union Stories

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