This new collection is exciting, because it's Smith's first major release that is not a novel. As a huge Lady Z fan, I'm nervous about her writing a book of essays. There is no doubt that I will read them. If anything, a book of personal essays about her various influences and how her upbringing with her father shaped her as a writer and a person should be more thrilling to me than a new novel because it allows a closer look at her life.
Even the interview filled me with appreciative exclamations as I was reading. "Oooooh, she's so smart" I kept alerting my roommate. It's true, though. Smith is exceptionally well-read. Here is an excerpt from the story that reveals her habits as a reader:
In "That Crafty Feeling," she confesses that, unlike novelists who avoid reading others' books while writing their own, "My writing desk is covered in open novels.I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage."
Awhile ago one of the essays from this new book was published in The New Yorker. I was thrilled when I saw her name in that issue's table of contents, and reading about how her father's very British sense of humor impacted her taste was exciting. A whole book of those essays is bound to keep me enthralled.
I think Changing My Mind may have to be my winter break reading selection....
I think Changing My Mind may have to be my winter break reading selection....
I have only read Smith's book, On Beauty, but I fell in love with her characters! I read the book 3 times in the span of a month while backpacking in Italy and it was so honest and raw that I was sad to finish each and every time i got to the last page. I will have to check out her new stuff!
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