Zadie Smith, _Feel Free_

A GREAT BIG collection (400+ pages, thirty essays plus the Harpers columns) of Smith's essays and occasional prose since Changing My Mind (2009), largely from New York Review of Books, New Yorker, Harpers, with a few unpublished pieces...why do I love Zadie Smith so much? I mean, I had already read most of these, but I went ahead and read them all again, enjoyed them every bit as much. It must be the perfect poise of her prose, partly--the agility with which she can go from the familiar and light to the thundercloud dark. That she can be funny without being shallow, intellectual without being ponderous. That she always conveys something of the living voice without ever being just chatty. That literature runs in her veins, but she can respond so tellingly to music (Blue), film (Anomalisa), painting, dance. That she can find a way to meet even the worst, most challenging occasions ("Fences: A Brexit  Diary") and also write "Joy" with its happy interjection, "Blessed Q-Tip!" That she always sounds like herself, and herself is an infinite variety.