Book review: Incisive Smith offers insights on creativity in random collection

Through 'Dead and Alive', Smith retains her crown as one of the sharpest, sanest, perceptively unpretentious minds of our generation

Zadie Smith: Throughout the collection, Smith holds the reader’s attention with her trademark measured finesse, tackling topics ranging from an enthusiastic defence of fiction to a freak fall from a window as a teenager. Picture: Brian Dowling/Getty Images

• Dead and Alive 
• Zadie Smith 
• Hamish Hamilton £16.99
•  Review: Laura Cassidy