This collection contains eight short stories that have appeared in various publications before (I hadn't read any previously), and eleven unpublished stories. Some I loved, and some I found too abstract and difficult to read - hence meeting in the middle at the three stars.

The ones I enjoyed were truly insightful and thought-provoking, with Zadie Smith's trademark ear for dialect and knack for making the mundane mesmerising. New York is almost its own character in some of the stories, brought completely to life in original ways. She also offers intelligent commentary on a fearful world - its political issues and issues of race, class and gender - and sensitive insight into families, relationships and sex.

The ones I didn't enjoy so much really struggled to maintain my interest, even at their short length, as I found them wordy and convoluted, unfortunately. Whilst it is common for short story collections to have some stories you enjoy more than others, the disparity between them in my opinion made the overall experience a little fragmented and left me feeling dissatisfied.

I absolutely love Zadie Smith's full length novels, and will stick to them in the future.

As with most short story collections, there are highs and lows, however it is impossible to deny Smith’s incredible talent in creating characters and situations that resonate. As always Smith’s observations are astute and her take on modern life is refreshing.
I think that perhaps it might be the case that the stories work best when read separately rather than reading all in one go as the sudden switch in pacing and in genre can be distracting. These are stories that you can dip in and out of at a leisurely pace and take time to fully enjoy.
Fans of Zadie Smith will love it. The better stories show Smith at her best – inventive, fresh, thought-provoking and fun, however I did find some to be frustrating as they would end just as they were getting into their stride.
I want to thank Penguin and Netgalley for the advanced copy – it was a pleasure to read and review.

It was probably a mistake to request short stories: I'm never quite sure how to review them! But, hey, it was Zadie Smith and she is a fantastic writer!

This collection is, perhaps, a little uneven, but that is often the case with short stories. Vivid characters, as you'd expect from Zadie Smith, and her ability to create a fully formed character with a few words and phrases - like a magician conjuring a figure from the air - is exceptional. I'm not sure I FULLY grasped every story but the fault for that lies at my feet!

Stories that I felt dropped the ball a tad included The Lazy River - perhaps a little obvious and easy, dare I say lazy, Brexit topicality.

Stories I loved included Meet The President.

This was such a fascinating collection of stories, some very much rooted in the real world and others with a definite speculative twist, all of which were written with Smith's flair for prose. As with all collections, there were some stories that worked more for me than others and the following were the stand outs:
Just Right: This was a wonderful tale about a young boy finding his place in the world and discovering girls for the first time. It was poignant and sweet without ever veering into saccharine and the wry humour throughout was pitch perfect.
Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets: This story is an examination of prejudice in all of its various manifestations that I absolutely loved. On the surface, it follows an ageing drag queen as she tries to get a new corset, but it ripples with vignettes about sibling relationships, acceptance and kindness that really struck a chord. Beautifully rendered and masterfully told!
Escape from New York: What would Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Michael Jackson talk about if they were on a road trip trying to escape a plague? As bonkers as it sounds and I loved every minute of it.
Big Week: This story was so touching and sad. Following one man as he tries to piece back together his life while in recovery from drug addiction, the way in which our protagonist remains upbeat and positive when faced with a series of knock backs was just heartbreaking.
Kelso Deconstructed: This was a fictionalised account of Kelso Cochrane's last day before his brutal and racially motivated murder in London in 1959. It was beautiful and tragic and rage inducing and I loved it.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Big fan of Zadie Smith but was left rather underwhelmed by this collection. I felt her desire to capture the essence of New York society ended up confusing a lot of the narrative. She writes so stunningly about London - particularly North West London - that this seemed to show her as being out of her depth.

I've been a long-time Zadie Smith fan, so having the chance to read Grand Union was a dream come true.

A mixture of brand new and never-before-seen short stories as well as those which have been published in newspapers and magazines, Grand Union is an incredible commentary on race, power and class.

A solid collection of stories, with Smith branching out in genre for a few of them (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a fantasy novel, at some point), this is one that fans of her writing are going to adore.

This is a fantastic collection of stories although each one left me wanting more!
The characters are without exception fascinating, beautifully written and with vastly different voices or even genres all in one book this is a great read for all Zadie Smith fans.

Predictably elegant, wry stories from Smith - I prefer her as an essayist, so am trying not to compare this too unfairly with last year's excellent Feel Free, but these are very readable and, at their best, highly thought-provoking,

Loved it—I've never actually read Zadie Smith before, but adored her writing in this. I really liked the story about the lazy river. The writing is so charming she somehow gets away with writing whole stories about herself going to lunch with friends, which I reckon no other living author could pull off quite so entertainingly.

Lots of humour, reflections on changing times, on dystopian futures (and dystopian present). Highly recommended.

As most story collections, Zadie Smith's new book had stories that impressed me and ones not so much. That's why I settled on a three rating.

The stories have content about racism, class, gender, and many more social issues. Some of them were a bit hard to get into and felt dry and distant, whereas some of them really had an impact on me and moved me emotionally.
I think if you're a fan of the author, you should read it as there's definitely value in these. The writing is rich and atmospheric per her usual style.

Thanks a lot to the publisher and NetGalley for this copy in exchange for an honest . review.

Believe it or not, this is the first time I have read any of Zadie Smith's word! I am clearly late to the party, and while this short story collection wasn't quite for me, I am convinced that I am going to fall in love with Smith's writing sooner or later.

Grand Union is a short-story collection consisting of 19 tales, some of which have previously been published in various journals and magazines. It's a wild and mostly fun mix, that allows a fabulous peek into what stories and ideas must be floating around in Smith's brain.

My rating is mainly due to me thinking that this probably wasn't the best introduction to her writing. I didn't know what to expect, and the stories were a bit too scattered for me to really feel like I could get a grip at what was happening. It's annoying criticism, considering I would have equally complained had the stories been too similar, but being thrown from a 9/11 fever dream to a muder story set in the 1950s ended up feeling a bit too jumpy.

An unexpected favourite of mine was The Lazy River, a tale of British vacationers in an all-inclusive Spanish resort. It was a poignant tale, sassy almost, that portrayed the absurdity of vacationing as an all-together relatable escape from reality. And that's something she does a lot: comment on society, while also critiquing in a sharp and oftentimes humorous way.

One thing I have taken away from this is that Zadie Smith is hella smart. And while this wasn't quite my cup of tea, I think I have got a lot to learn from her and her writing.

My thanks to Penguin Books U.K./Hamish Hamilton for an eARC via NetGalley of Zadie Smith’s ‘Grand Union’ in exchange for an honest review.

This is Smith’s first short story collection and contains eleven previously unpublished stories and eight that appeared in the New Yorker and other publications.

While I have read and enjoyed four of Zadie Smith’s five novels and rate her highly as an author, my response to this collection was mixed.

I rarely read short stories preferring the experience of immersing myself in longer narratives and getting to know characters rather than the kind of quick sketches in this format.

While I found a number of the stories in ‘Grand Union’ thought-provoking, amusing, and insightful overall the collection just felt fragmented.

With some collections authors or editors will introduce the stories and provide some context. I would have liked that here rather than just being thrown from one scenario to the next.

So it’s getting a middle of the ratings from me 2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Although each of Zadie Smith's stories in her first collection, Grand Union, are interesting, generally well-written, and have that nuanced characterisation and observation that I so enjoy about Zadie Smith, I found this collection to be quite disappointing. The stories are often abrupt and a little disjointed, and don't have the same inherent sense of quality that her novels have. Still, there are loads of stories in here, and it's definitely worth a read if you're a Zadie Smith fan!

Once again Zadie Smith uncovers the every day in her vibrant prose that never fails to deliver.

Her short stories are as delectable and punchy as her novels.

She remains one of the best British contemporary authors of our time.

As short story collections from a singular author often are, I found this to be a mixed bag.
Smith writes with authority on a range of topics, including sexism, racism, classism - as well as notions of time passing and finding an identity.

I found it hard, sometimes, to begin a new story straight after the old - either because the prior was so engaging or the new story was much less-so, but I enjoyed Smith's story-telling largely (although some stories felt over-worked and difficult to follow). I feel I would have gotten more out of this collection had I read it slowly, picking up a story here and there, rather than digesting them one after the other and probably not allowing myself enough pause for each one.

Each story definitely had a feeling, or vibe, and this atmospheric writing is what I love Smith for. Although I have mixed feelings about a few of the stories, the ones that pulled me in did so wholly and I would recommend this to any fans of her work. My personal favourite was Sentimental Education, with a special mention to The Lazy River.

I enjoy reading short story collections, and often, even if there are one or two stories that aren't so good you still come away with a positive feeling. Unfortunately, I felt this set of stories was such a ragbag that I came away baffled as to quite how it had been published. There are some really, really good pieces in there. But then there are others that I wasn't quite sure when they'd started, or if they'd ended, or what had happened in between.
It sometimes felt like trying too hard - very literary fiction, which I don't always get on with because overly worked style just doesn't do it for me, I want a good story that moves me in some way. And there were moments of that. Some that were really great. So I feel a little bad to go right down to 2 stars but that was the final impression I was left with after finishing.
It did, however, make me think that I would like to pick up a novel by Zadie Smith (I read White Teeth years ago) as perhaps I'd get on better with an entire, coherent book.

★★✰✰✰ 2 stars

Perhaps one of the worst collection of short stories I've ever read..
While I still believe that Zadie Smith has what it takes to be a good writer but I do wonder whether she is one in actual practice...I'm starting to think that she will never produce something that I will be able to appreciate and see a proof her abilities.
Her stories offer us with a murky blend of satire and wokeness, which strive to be thought-provoking and ambivalent 'hot takes' on present issues but, more often than not, seem closer to drafts for a creative writing class.

These short stories are so focused on critiquing a certain subject that they have no substance as they resort to unfunny caricatures and explicit scenes as a way of appearing as if they are 'shockingly' candid narratives (shocking for the sake of being shocking).
She combines a mixture of topical or 'in' things such as Tumblr (there is a short story that pokes fun at it through a series of posts that seem as if taken directly by Tumblr itself...how does that qualify as satire?) and then she throws in erudite references and elaborate speculations that go at odds with one another. There were also many phrases that seemed very contrived: such as “It was true. What the woman had said was true, in intention, but what the girl had said was true, too, in reality” and “For a fatherless family, The Dialectic as theirs now was, this collective aspect was the perfect camouflage. There were no individual people here”.
In spite of their brevity, these short stories dragged. The first one, perhaps the shortest in the collection, was the least offensive one....the rest seemed to last way past their 'punch line'. For example, a story focused on a certain type of British tourist (a Brexiteer group who goes to Spain to eat British food and float in a pool/river all day) is clumsily narrated (the 'we' and 'us' tried to make them into some sort of multi-conscious collective) and within a few lines resorts to repetition as a way of stressing their poor behaviour.
A story that could have presented us with a woman's struggle to reconcile herself with her sexuality (in that she wants to dominate rather than submit or be equal to her partner) ends up being little more than a needlessly graphic (I don't mind explicit scenes if they have some sort of purpose or are convincingly incorporated within the rest of the narrative) tale that seems to close to Fifty Shades of Grey for my comfort there is a tampon scene! Such an empowering portrayal of female sexuality! So transgressive! So utterly unnecessary! Not only did it strike me as being crass just for the sake of being crass but it was also full of corny repetitions ( we get it, she wants to “nullify his flesh in hers”).

This is one shallow collection of stories that seem to ooze smugness (they are not as clever as they set themselves to be). There is no heart or depth within them, and the characters seem mere sketches that exist only to offer a certain, often idiotic, viewpoint (white, conservative, middle-class women are the worst, we get it). In these stories people suck, the world is terrible, and we should all have a laugh at the expenses of other people's interests or beliefs.
You might be able to appreciate this one if you are a 'hardcore' Zadie Smith fan...but if you have are not too keen on her writing you might want to skip this one.
A last pearl of wisdom from Smith: “And that's all a year actually is—a series of months that jump four at a time”.

As usual I do not read short stories, I usually find them totally frustrating and this time also. I asked Netgalley for this book mostly because I love Zadie Smith and I am not only an avid reader but a fan also. Some of the stories were known to me, not all of them, and some were remarkable, but not all of them. All in all I wouldn't start to read this author from this book, because I think that she writes novel better als short stories, even if her strongest point is the way in which, with not so many words, she can describes reality.

Si solito non leggo i racconti, perché li trovo estremamente frustranti, come stavolta. Ho chiesto l'ARC a Netgalley solo perché io sono una grossa fan di Zadie Smith. Alcune di queste brevi storie erano giá state pubblicate in precedenza, altre non le conoscevo, alcune sono notevoli, altre non tanto. Tutto sommato mi sento di affermare che magari non é il miglior libro per iniziare a leggere questa autrice, il cui punto di forza é descrivere alla perfezione la realtá, senza usare troppe parole.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

Zadie Smith is one of those authors who is an instant buy for me. When I seen that I had been approved on Netgalley, I immediately picked this one up. It's a bit strange one to review; I am not a big reader of short story collections as I am more drawn to longer narratives, where I can be fully drawn in. This was particularly the case in Grand Union as each story is utterly different from the previous story, with different styles, themes, topics, genres and time periods. It read a bit more like a greatest hits rather than a thematically cohesive collection, so at times it did feel a bit disjointed.

Nevertheless, Smith is exception at engaging readers into the narrative no matter how brief the sojourn is. With many of the titles, I would be fully invested within a few pages. Smith's sharp soco-political and cultural commentary is on point here, and I loved her authorial voice running through the pages. I also really enjoyed how you can see the themes that have started to draw her in more through the years. Many of her characters here are in their middle years, with children and copious life experience behind them. It felt gratifying to see where she has gone since her White Teeth years.

As often comes with short story collections, however, I oscillated between loving one story and wanting to read on, and moving onto the next title and feeling a bit disappointed. For this reason, I would admit this probably is not my favourite book of hers.

Look out for Sentimental Education, For the King, and Now More Than Ever. They are fantastic.