Zadie Smith is a goddess - I feel like everyone should just have accepted that by now. In this collection she discusses some of her influences in her writing which is really interesting to me, a writer, who is inspired by Smith's magnificent prose on a daily basis. The fact that she is so talented and yet so modest blows me away, and this collection highlights everything that makes her successful while being incredibly down to earth!

“Writing exists (for me) at the intersection of three precarious uncertain elements: language, the world, the self.”

In her wide-ranging new collection, Zadie Smith’s sharp eye darts from social media to Ella Fitzgerald, from the English seasons to Prince’s dancing. For Smith, anything is a potential text that she can subject to her talent for keen observation.

These essays occasionally leave one wishing she’d consider embodying a specific opinion or identity, as much of her work appears to be ambiguous. Individually, her essays have a truncated effect, but read in succession, they start to take a form that makes more sense. They become something like a novel, with Zadie Smith as its most compelling character.

The standout sections of this collection were certainly the political ones, which were superlative. As these essays were stacked straight to the beginning, the overall impression was that the text was front-loaded, thereby fundamentally setting up the reader to experience a decline - however slight. 

To be fair, even Zadie’s worst essay in this collection did not begin to approach most writers’ best; even the ones I had the least interest in were nevertheless certainly worthy of my time and consideration. But what I would give for her to direct her considerable talents to dissecting not just popular culture, but to an entire book dedicated to the immense and inconceivable political climes in which we find ourselves. 

With thanks to Penguin and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

A true talent of our generation, Zadie Smith never fails to write beautifully and move with her words. A brilliant collection of essays that touch you and stir passions.

A challenging and thoughtful collection of essays from one of the best British writers of the current century.

Excellent non-fiction from the ever reliable Zadie Smith. Primarily known for her fiction, Smith’s collection of essays on everything from Facebook to Brexit has proved her place at the top of her profession. Truly the voice of a generation.

I first fell in love with Zadie Smith’s writing when I had to read White Teeth for an English Literature essay at college, and ever since I’ve been hungrily devouring anything and everything she puts her name to. So I was really excited when I saw that she’d published a new collection of essays this month, titled Feel Free.
The subject matter of the essays is varied, from politics to critique of art and films, but each was written with that incredibly style that Zadie Smith has. My favourites were Fences: A Brexit Diary, and North West London Blues, an essay about the closure of her local library in Willesden. Both managed to evoke such emotion and feeling, while still adding valuable commentary about our current social and political climate.

“I’m reading Zadie Smith’s latest essay collection and she makes me never want to write again because why bother when you aren’t Zadie Smith!” My Zadie Smith experience summed up in one sentence.

Seriously though, Feel Free is glorious collection of essays ranging from the personal to the political; covering art, literature, philosophy and music. Smith’s words are a joy to read even when unfamiliar with the text/art she is discussing.

Stand out essay – Some Note on Attunement

About ten years ago, I stumbled upon two books in a charity shop: On Beauty and White Teeth by Zadie Smith. I’d seen them both featured heavily in our local Waterstones, so I picked them up.

I finished On Beauty. I turned to the front page. And I read it all over again.

The thing that I love about Smith is her writing style. It is beautiful, fluid, funny, and readable. Her characters are so interesting that I found myself completely gripped by their stories.

So when I was approved by Penguin to receive an advanced e-copy of Feel Free, Smith’s collection of essays, I was excited.

The essays range from Smith’s thoughts on Brexit and the impassioned defense of public libraries, to interviews with Jay-Z and the excellent comedic duo Key and Peele, to her musings on films, music and works of art.

Smith’s writing style is, as usual, beautiful. Her observations are sharp. and I found her perspective interesting. Her essays on Joni Mitchell and Facebook were particularly good.

The downside? I really struggled with some of these essays.

I think this is the inherent risk you take in picking up a book of essays on a variety of topics – some of them will chime with you, others won’t. I pushed my way through essays on films I hadn’t watched and works of art I hadn’t seen, and Smith writes so intelligently about them that I found myself a bit intimidated. I ended up skipping whole chunks of essays just to move onto the next one. You don’t get the impression of length with an e-book, but it turns out, this is quite a hefty tome with a good amount of content. It feels more like a book that you would pick up and read whenever you fancied a well-written essay, rather than something you could devour from cover to cover.

If you are a fan of a well-written essay, and a fan of Smith, I think there is treasure to be found here. On the plus side, I discovered new things thanks to this collection. As Smith explores in the essay Some Notes on Attunement, sometimes we are narrow in our appreciation of culture, mostly due to time constraints – ‘Busy changing nappies. Busy cleaning the sink or going to work … you can understand why many people feel rather pushed for time’ – and it can bring a sense of loss when you realise that you just don’t have enough time to appreciate everything the world has to offer us. But Smith’s essay collection helped me to discover new things, and open up my mind a little more, for which I am grateful.

"It was not even like going to one of these farmers' markets that have sprung up all over London at the crossroads where personal wealth meets a strong interest in artisanal cheeses."

From the writer of White Teeth and Swing Time (among others) comes a new non-fiction collection, pulling together essays and reviews from other projects. 

I love Smith's style of writing. She has this quiet, subtle wit where every word feels intentional and a sentence can feel perfectly ordinary until it ends with "a strong interest in artisanal cheeses" and I laugh in surprise. Hers is an intellectual style of writing that feels aspirational to me; it takes more mental effort than the average book I read, but I don't feel alienated by that, and I feel like I've achieved something worthwhile when I come to the end.

However, I have mixed feelings about this particular collection. This was a rare occasion where I often did feel alienated; her style is such that if you are familiar with her subject, her commentary is witty and insightful, thinking about the subject in a way you probably never considered. However, if you aren't familiar with the subject, then it all becomes a bit highbrow and you can't see the nuance anymore. Her essays on her local library, Brexit and Facebook were excellent, for example, I'm familiar with the latter two, and familiar enough with London to appreciate the former. I didn't get anything out of the multiple essays about art because I don't have a particular appreciation for art; and didn't particularly enjoy the reviews of books I'd never read and that didn't sound like the type of books I'd want to read. Those essays became laborious because I couldn't find an access point of common understanding and most of it went over my head.

I would still say it's worth a try, particularly if you are a Zadie Smith fan, because when she's writing about a familiar subject, it's wonderful.

Just the book we needed from Zadie Smith during this post-Brexit times. The topics and wide ranging but somehow, instead of appearing scattered, Smith's thoughts come through clearly and her essays remain connected. An absolute joy to read.

I really wanted to like this one, because it was kind of billed as a new 'Bad Feminist' with a series of insightful, short essays. Maybe it was just the formatting that I didn't like, but I really couldn't get into it. There was just nothing pulling me in or gripping me. It seemed to be less of an exploration of pop culture but a memoir talking about Zadie Smith's life. Maybe it's a personal thing about her writing, I'm not sure.

I feel that with a book of essays, there are always going to be some that resonate more with a reader than others. Zadie Smith is an astonishing writer, no matter what she's writing about, and I found the essays about life-writing, identity in fiction, and writers and dancers to be particularly interesting. Also the essay about J. G. Ballard's 'Crash'. Some of the other essays didn't really do it for me, but I'm sure everyone will have their favourites.

This is a startlingly intellectual and biographical work that gives extraordinary insight into the life and work of one of Britain's brightest novelist. I enjoyed reading the stories very much and they resonate on so many levels, because they cover topics that occupy families and dinner conversation all over the country, if not Europe. From Brexit to multicultural upbringing in London, you will be hard pressed to find another writer who can put her feelings into thoughts into writing with such eloquence and skill. This will be a well-loved and well-thuumbed volume for some time to come.

What do you most look forward to in a new Zadie Smith novel? What’s your favourite thing about On Beauty or White Teeth? She’s a great novelist, her characters stay with you, but what sets her apart (and the reason why every contemporary literature class features at least a short story by her) is that she comes from an academic background, and it ever-present in her writing. More than crafting an enticing story, or introducing you to complex and fascinating characters, her art involves an underlying understanding of critical and literary theory that gives explicit purpose to her fiction. She doesn’t just tell you a story; she knows why you need this story, because she is primarily concerned with the social role of writing.

Feel Free is a collection of Zadie Smith’s essays; some of them have been previously published – in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The New York Review of Books etc. – so a chunk of them can be found online, and some of them are new. The topics are varied, and the books is split in five sections: “In the World,” “In the Audience,” “In the Galley,” “On the Bookshelf” and “Feel Free.” Why do we need libraries? How do different generations respond to Facebook? What’s so fascinating about Joni Mitchell? What’s it like for Justin Bieber to meet people? (“I’m not on Twitter but quite often I find myself thinking of Justin Bieber. It’s not a sexual interest – at least, I don’t think it is. It’s more of a – bear with me – philosophical interest.”) The questions range from artistic, to creative, to socio-political, to personal, and they are all explored with the same level of introspective curiosity and sensitivity. In a way, every essay here is personal to Smith; even when the topic may seem to demand a different approach, her angle is always personal. When she sets out to interview Jay Z (in “The House That Hova Built”), it’s not only his perspective on the evolving world of hip-hop and civil rights that matters; the interview genre is mixed with the essay genre to produce a narrative where Jay’s thoughts are processed by Smith first, which is then followed by her own experience with hip-hop (along with subtle callbacks to On Beauty, for attentive readers). When she writes about the transformative art of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, the context is framed by the role of their mixed-race background in the way they construct sketches and characters to analyse various elements of the contemporary discourse on race in America.
And when she is not writing about art that deals with social issues, she’s exploring her own relationship with art, as she does in “Some Notes on Attunement,” where she questions her relationship with Joni Mitchell’s music. The beloved Canadian songwriter proved to be an acquired taste for Smith, who seemed to exhibit a natural resistance to her open tuned guitar plucking during her youth. At some point though, Smith fell abruptly and unexpectedly in love with Joni Mitchell, and in this essay she is trying to understand why – or how?
This question leads to an exploration of artistry, how artistic taste is constructed over the years, what she calls “connoisseurs”: people whose knowledge on art, and not only, is so wide and goes so deep that is baffles Smith: “How did she find the time?” 

As is the case with the best essays, Feel Free presents you with a collection of thoughts that don’t presume to give you any answers but understand that you need to explore these questions for yourself – they just provide some potentially useful tools for doing so. Feel Free is like a catalogues of thoughts and ideas on the world we live in – you can pick it up from your nightstand whenever you need some help making sense of something that you think Zadie Smith might know a thing or two about. It won’t solve any problems, but it will expand your field of vision. And if you’re more keen on reading it in one go, I imagine it will feel like sitting down for a drink with Zadie Smith and passionately discussing art and society for hours.

In her second book of essays, reviews, articles etc, Feel Free, Zadie Smith offers a beguiling guide to an impressively wide range of subjects, from Jay-Z, her father and films such as Get Out and Anomalisa to Rome, art and parenthood. She can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned - read it.

Feel Free’ is a new collection of over thirty essays, reviews and interviews by Zadie Smith divided into five sections. The first and last of these, ‘In the World’ and ‘Feel Free’, cover current events and some autobiographical “life writing”, while ‘In the Audience’, ‘In the Gallery’ and ‘On the Bookshelf’ concern her musings on film, art and writing respectively.

Covering a vast array of topics, the collection opens with an impassioned defence of libraries (“the only thing left on the high street that doesn’t want either your soul or your wallet”) while a new security fence constructed around her daughter’s primary school is the springboard for a nuanced and insightful piece on Brexit. As to be expected, some of the more in-depth reviews may only be of real interest for those who already know about the subject matter. I am familiar with some of the films and authors discussed here (‘The Social Network’, ‘Get Out’ and Karl Ove Knausgaard are all featured), but it has to be said that the more academic essays about art were less appealing to me and I skimmed most of these. As well as subject matter, the essays were originally written for very different audiences across different publications and while many pieces first appeared in the New York Review of Books and Harper’s magazine, some were delivered as lectures.

As she does so skilfully in her fiction, Smith moves easily between up-to-the-minute contemporary pop culture and obscure or highbrow intellectual figures – from an exploration of Schopenhauer references in the film ‘Anomalisa’ to the surprising links between Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and pop star Justin Bieber (yes, really). Above all, however, Smith is at her most engaging when talking about her own writing and family background. In the lecture ‘The I Who Is Not Me’, she explores why it took until her fifth novel Swing Time for her to start writing fiction in the first person while ‘The Bathroom’, a new autobiographical piece published last year, is among the most impressive in the “life writing” section.

I am rarely drawn to collections of essays, even those by well-respected authors whose novels I have enjoyed, as it strikes me as a form which often serves the writer much more than the audience. Fortunately, Smith shows that essays need not be dry and inaccessible - instead, they can be illuminating and erudite. I haven’t yet read Smith’s first collection of essays ‘Changing My Mind’ published in 2009 but will consider doing so while waiting for her next novel to be published. Many thanks to Penguin Books UK for sending me a review copy of ‘Feel Free’ via NetGalley.

It's hard to review a collection of essays - there's not much you can really say without sharing the essays themselves. I'll do my best to capture what I think about the collection as a whole, rather than referring to specific pieces, as this is spoiler-free and pre-release. 


Firstly, Zadie Smith's writing is very good, she writes beautifully, captivating the readers' attention and making you want to read this whole book in one sitting. However, I think that this is a collection of essays, and that you could read them in different ways, for instance, reading one essay per day, over a longer period of time, reading one of five sections of the book or reading the whole book in one day. I read this on and off, and ended up reading around one section per sitting. 


I really enjoyed reading this collection of essays, I'm a fan of sets of poems, anthologies and essay collections as I enjoy picking these kinds of books from my bookshelf and reading small excerpts, dipping in and out. My favourites were the essays focused on politics or media, because I found these the most interesting and engaging - probably as these are topics I enjoy reading about, whereas I didn't enjoy the essays which discussed and commented on art etc. Some of these were interesting but the majority felt like a page-filler. 


I would recommend this collection of essays for those who like dipping in and out of these kinds of reads, and would recommend reading this in parts. I will look out for Zadie Smith's books in the future!

Full Review: https://thereadingruby.blogspot.com/2018/02/book-review-feel-free-by-zadie-smith.html

Zadie Smith exists on a plane above us mere mortals. Her sheer intelligence and wit shine through these essays leaving the reader in awe. Surely it's unfair that one person has this much talent? Inevitably I enjoyed some essays more than others but each essay was insightful and informative. Some subjects were a little obscure for me and not knowing much about them made full understanding impossible. Others were absolutely riveting and demonstrated Zadie Smith's philosophical curiosity. I would definitely recommend this book.

In theory, Feel Free sounds like a great idea - a collection of essays written by Zadie Smith - and there are some great pieces in this. I really loved her essays on the closure of her local library by the council and her piece on Brexit. Her essays on Jay-Z, and Key and Peele were also interesting. 

However, the rest of the book is such a struggle that I honestly couldn't force myself through any further after 30%. The essays are long, far, far too long. Great verbose, meandering musings of essays that always seem to peter out rather than pack a punch. I found myself becoming very quickly bored and irritated with the writing style. By 30% I just felt completely saturated with Too Long. I flicked through to the end to ensure I wasn't going to miss anything, and the book just went on and on and on. Reflections on literature, music, films, etc none of which were particularly interesting and always great, winding tales. 

I had really been looking forward to Feel Free, but unfortunately we really didn't get on and I would be hesitant to ever pick up another Zadie Smith essay again.