Intimations

Six Essays

By: Zadie Smith

Narrated by: Zadie Smith

“[Smith’s] slim collection of essays captures this peculiar moment with startling clarity.... The personal and political intermingle for a powerful indictment of America’s social systems.” (TIME, The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020)

“While quarantined amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith penned six dazzling, trenchant essays burrowing deep into our contemporary culture of disease and upheaval and reflecting on what was ‘once necessary’ that now ‘appears inessential.” (O, The Oprah Magazine, Best Books of 2020)

“Smith does more than illuminate what we're going through right now. She offers a model of how to think ourselves through a fraught historical moment without getting hysterical or sanctimonious, without losing our compassion or our appreciation for what's good in other people. She teaches us how to be better at being human.” (John Powers, Fresh Air)

Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of reflective essays by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our time.

Written during the early months of lockdown, Intimations explores ideas and questions prompted by an unprecedented situation. What does it mean to submit to a new reality - or to resist it? How do we compare relative sufferings? What is the relationship between time and work? In our isolation, what do other people mean to us? How do we think about them? What is the ratio of contempt to compassion in a crisis? When an unfamiliar world arrives, what does it reveal about the world that came before it?

Suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these extraordinary times, Intimations is a slim, suggestive volume with a wide scope, in which Zadie Smith clears a generous space for thought, open enough for each listener to reflect on what has happened - and what should come next.

The author will donate her royalties from the sale of Intimations to charity.

©2020 Zadie Smith (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Intimations captures the uneasiness of our modern moment as Smith reflects on the COVID-19 pandemic and relates it to issues of privilege and inequity. Her urgent voice tackles everything from what becomes important during isolation to the global response to George Floyd’s killing. The author asks questions, both timely and timeless, about how we respond to crisis and suffering." (Time, Best New Books of July)

awesome jewel

this was a wonderful listen. great stories with poignant subject matter. kept me engaged

Lucid yet contemplative

The captivating prose brings out our own thoughts strewn nicely with a thread of uplifting art of reading. This is one such book which would be less stimulating without the magical renderence of the endearing voice of Zadie.

An eye-opener for me into our inequitable systems

Narrated by the author's own lovely voice, I listened to it completely in a day. The author offered an incredibly unique and insightful perspective into the issues exploding before us this very day. The issues of racism and inequality amplified many times over by the pandemic and how our country's structures have been incapable of dealing with it and in fact have exacerbated its impact and led to many unnecessary deaths. As an older white male these essays were eye-popping to me.

Listening to Zadie Smith

love that it was in the authors voice. I love that Smith acted out the dialogue.

Read this book

Beautiful, clever, thought provoking, funny, convicting, tender. Less than 2 hours of time but I know I’ll be thinking about it for weeks.

2020 seems like a lifetime ago

Smith is an incredibly smart, observant writer. I will likely need to relisten to really understand her points in this collection. That said, the initial lockdowns of 2020 seem like a strange collective experience of sacrifice very different from the 2021 that followed. Covid lockdown was for the common good and carried a common sorrow, but also it seemed like everyone was trying to be hopeful. I wrote a 50,000 word manuscript! In 2021 and this first week of 2022, we're grinding, exhausted, no longer tapping into the collective well of hope because the reserves are empty.

The P.S. essay on George Floyd was strong. needed, and did not suffer from the same rueful melancholy of the other essays. I found the last essay, Intimations, a bit confusing. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to recognize the names she was saying as influences on her life.

Smith puts into words what many of us feel

Zadie Smith is a talented essayist. In Intimations, her essays have a sense of urgency… right here… right now. To cope, Smith did what writers do, she wrote! Luckily for us as her talent puts into words so many of the things that I (and, I suspect, many others) have been feeling. "I felt like telling the truth, as unvarnished as I could manage it”. Smith is donating all royalties to charity.
On racism: Referring to the pandemic as “The Global Humbling” (which I love), Smith draws an analogy between it and racism. I truly believe that many people are unaware that they carry the virus at all until the very moment you find yourself phoning the cops to explain the race of the man you thought looked suspicious walking through his own neighborhood, or who spoke back to you in Central Park... To fear the contagion of poverty is reasonable. To keep voting for policies that ensure the permanent existence of an underclass is what is meant by “structural racism.”
On the virus: The supposed democratic nature of plague—the way in which it can strike all registered voters equally—turns out to be somewhat overstated. A plague it is, but American hierarchies, hundreds of years in the making, are not so easily overturned. Black and Latino people are now dying at twice the rate of white and Asian people. More poor people are dying than rich. More in urban centers than in the country.
On death: Death comes to all—but in America it has long been considered reasonable to offer the best chance of delay to the highest bidder.
On essential workers: People thank God for “essential” workers they once considered lowly, who not so long ago they despised for wanting 15 bucks an hour.
On change: “Change comes from the realization that what you’ve been told is “just the way things are” is, in fact, not nature but ideology.” I bought this ebook, then found it so meaningful that I wanted to hear it in Smith’s own voice so, I bought the audio book too! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#emptynestreader #Intimations #ZadieSmith #emptynestreaderaudiobooks🎧
MORE QUOTES from Zadie Smith:
I used to think that there would one day be a vacine: that if enough black people named the virus, explained it, demonstrated how it operates, videoed its effects, protested it peacefully, revealed how widespread it really is, how the symptoms arise, how so many Americans keep giving it to each other, irresponsibly and shamefully, generation after generation, causing intolerable and unending damage both to individual bodies and to the body politic—I thought if that knowledge became as widespread as could possibly be managed or imagined that we might finally reach some kind of herd immunity. I don’t think that anymore.”
“... the truth is that not enough carriers of this virus have ever been willing to risk the potential loss of any aspect of their social capital to find out what kind of America might lie on the other side of segregation. They are very happy to "blackout" their social media for a day, to read all-black books, and "educate" themselves about black issues — as long as this education does not occur in the form of actual black children attending their actual schools.”

Thoughtful and timely

I’ve been a Zadie fan since White Teeth and this latest title doesn’t disappoint. Listening in NY whilst the pandemic continues, a lot of the stories she mentioned feel very raw and relevant. Loved hearing the words in her own voice as well - her accents are on point!

Read it now!

Brilliant, exhilarating, candid, self-aware, warm, gently humorous, and ultimately devastating. Read it before anything else on your list.

words to open your mind

I loved every minute of this. I think it stretched my mind, confirmed inner thoughts and gave joy to listening to an intelligent woman's observations.
I will need to find more from this writer.