Feel Free

The essays in Zadie Smith's second collection range across culture and politics, from the film The Social Network and Facebook itself to public libraries and the shared failure to act on global warming. Five sections, among them In the Gallery and On the Bookshelf, mix previously unpublished pieces with known essays such as Joy. Other subjects include Brexit, Jay-Z, Karl Ove Knausgaard and the link between dancing and writing. Smith borrowed the title from her husband, Nick Laird, who had published a poetry collection with the same name. Hamish Hamilton published it in February 2018, and it won the National Book Critics Circle's criticism award.

Barack Obama put it on the year-end list of his best books of 2018, posted on Facebook.