Changing My Mind

The latest from acclaimed author Zadie Smith isn't a new novel proper but a collection of essays, reviews, speeches and columns she has written over the years.

Filled with brainy critique and dry wit, ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, it's divided into 5 sections- 'Reading', 'Being', 'Seeing', 'Feeling' and 'Remembering'-  and in each Zadie casts her acute eye over the cultural and the personal. Whether writing of Obama, Katherine Hepburn, Kafka, Anna Magnani or David Foster Wallace, she brings a practitioner's care to the art of criticism, with a style as sympathetic as it is insightful. She is funny, endearing and honest, and this is the closest you'll get to an interview with the shy almost recluseful author of the aching On Beauty and the wild White Teeth. She is a precise essayist and no word is wasted.

There are times where it gets flighty in discussing big literary ideas and devices but others where a glimpse into her mind and writing process show a sharp and intelligent person with a furious funny sense of humour. If there was ever any doubt as to Smith's abilities, whether she can match the hype, whether she's a flash in the pan or a writer in it for the long haul, then this collection of essays will blow any detractor out of the water. She's here for the long haul, and boy can she write.