Pretty much since I read White Teeth, Zadie has been a touchstone for me. In January '06, I wrote this (in re: On Beauty):
...while I like her heaps, I also tend to be particularly critical of our Zadie. There are probably a few reasons for this: first, there's a sense in which I feel as if I've grown up with her, and as if I've watched her grow up as a writer (a continuing process on both ends, natch); second, and relatedly, she's a contemporary writer, writing about contemporary times; and third, and relatedly again, the milieus [pl?] about which she writes aren't all that far removed from my own (all things being relative)...
All of that is still pretty much true, but the balance is tipping, and more and more she's coming to seem one of the most cogent, engaging voices of her (and my) generation - she actually has about seven years on me, but near enough - and this collection has done a lot to cement that sense for me. Arranged in five sections along roughly thematic lines - 'reading' (books), 'being' (writing/society/identity), 'seeing' (movies), 'feeling' (family, etc) and 'remembering' (an extended appreciation of / testament to David Foster Wallace) - but with her key preoccupations bleeding across those divisions, it highlights what a good writer she has become, capable of writing clearly and insightfully in a vein at once personal and critical/analytical...maybe the next novel, whenever it arrives, really will be the great one of which she's always seemed at least potentially capable.
