Feel free : essays /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Smith, Zadie, author.
Uniform title:Essays. Selections
Imprint:New York : Penguin Press, 2018.
Description:452 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Language:English
Subject:English essays.
English literature -- History and criticism.
English essays.
English literature.
Essays.
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Essays.
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11398327
Hidden Bibliographic Details
Other uniform titles:Smith, Zadie. Northwest London blues.
Smith, Zadie. Elegy for a country's season.
Smith, Zadie. Fences.
Smith, Zadie. On optimism and despair.
Smith, Zadie. Generation why?
Smith, Zadie. House that Hova built.
Smith, Zadie. Brother from another mother.
Smith, Zadie. Some notes on attunement.
Smith, Zadie. Windows on the will.
Smith, Zadie. Dance lessons for writers.
ISBN:9781594206252
1594206252
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 438-444) and index.
Summary:A collection of both previously unpublished works and classic essays includes discussions of recent cultural and political events, social networking, libraries, and the failure to address global warming.
"Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel, White Teeth, almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also as 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."--Dust jacket.