Swing Time

by Zadie Smith | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0143111647 Global Overview for this book
Registered by freuju of Spiegelau, Bayern Germany on 9/9/2018
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This book is in a Controlled Release! This book is in a Controlled Release!
8 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by freuju from Spiegelau, Bayern Germany on Sunday, September 9, 2018
Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.

Journal Entry 2 by freuju at Waldkirchen, Bayern Germany on Tuesday, September 18, 2018
The book will travel as an international ring. If you'd like to join, send me a PM and let me know where you'd be prepared to ship.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/20/555491

Ring:

Ring:
1. Lilo37fee (Germany, intl. shipping)
2. penelopewanders (Switzerland, within Europe)
3. SerendipityN (Germany, intl. shipping)
1. Lilo37fee (Germany, intl. shipping)
2. penelopewanders (Switzerland, within Europe)
3. SerendipityN (Germany, intl. shipping)
4. mscar (Canada, US shipping)
5. valpete (USA, intl. shipping)
6. BaiLong (China, intl. shipping)
7. conto (Portugal, within Europe)
8. Maria-Nunes (Portugal, within Europe)
9. ...

Journal Entry 3 by freuju at Waldkirchen, Bayern Germany on Saturday, September 22, 2018
Travelling to Lilo37fee. Hope you like it!

Journal Entry 4 by wingLilo37feewing at -- Irgendwo in Bayern, Bayern Germany on Friday, September 28, 2018
Thank you!

Journal Entry 5 by wingLilo37feewing at -- Irgendwo in Bayern, Bayern Germany on Friday, October 5, 2018
Zadie Smith´s novel is written from the perspective of an unnamed thirtysomething female narrator who grows up in a working-class neighborhood of London with her white father and Jamaican mother. Her best friend until young adulthood is another biracial girl named Tracey, who is raised by a single mom and occasionally visited by an absentee dad. Both girls attend dance classes as children, and they share eclectic obsessions with dancers ranging from Ginger Rogers to Michael Jackson. The two girls dream of being dancers--but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, about what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. The novel follows the gradual breakup of their friendship and the narrator’s early adulthood when she works as a personal assistant for a famous pop star who wants to found a school for girls in West Africa.
The novel is easy to read, but still has a lot of twists and covers interesting topics, touching on a variety of issues ranging from purpose, destiny, fame, to self-worth, all driven by relationships between family and life-long friends. I thoroughly appreciated her choice to interweave stories across from time periods of their lives.
For a large majority of the novel, the narrator exists in juxtaposition to Tracy, yet Tracy dominates every scene she appears in. I did not fully understand what the author wanted to tell by putting these two girls in the center especially because the narrator stays quite undefined.

Journal Entry 6 by wingpenelopewanderswing at Hasliberg, Bern / Berne Switzerland on Thursday, October 11, 2018
This has arrived in the windy Swiss Alps just as I'm about to leave for a little over two weeks... I'm not sure I'll be able to take this one with me! So this might be here for a few weeks. It will be kept safe, and will roll soon, just not as soon as I might have wished. Thanks so much for sending and for making this available.

Journal Entry 7 by wingpenelopewanderswing at Hasliberg, Bern / Berne Switzerland on Sunday, November 11, 2018
This is here as a ring. I read White Teeth years ago, and appreciate this author's prose. I found this story interesting, but found the ending a bit unsatisfactory. It feels like too many threads remain unravelled at the end. The main character's fall from grace seems so sudden as to be rather baffling. Was it what Lamin said? Or was it Fern's doing? That seems rather out of character to me. The contrasting worlds are well described, but my general impression was that much - maybe too much - remained implied and hinted at, and a lot stayed on the surface.

Journal Entry 8 by wingpenelopewanderswing at Hasliberg, Bern / Berne Switzerland on Monday, November 12, 2018

Released 5 yrs ago (11/12/2018 UTC) at Hasliberg, Bern / Berne Switzerland

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

This leaves the Swiss Alps for Germany. Thanks for making this available and for sending. Enjoy!

Journal Entry 9 by wingSerendipityNwing at Wuppertal, Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany on Monday, November 19, 2018
Arrived on Saturday. Thank you!

Journal Entry 10 by wingSerendipityNwing at Wuppertal, Nordrhein-Westfalen Germany on Sunday, January 13, 2019
It took me while to get into this but for the reamining two thirds I found it hard to put down. I liked her style, never having read anything by Zadie Smith before. I enjoyed the way past and present are intertwined. And, although I found none of the characters particulary likable, the author still managed to make it possible to relate to them in some way or the other.

Thank you for giving me the chance to read this!

I finally made it to the post office today. Sorry for the delay. It's on its way to mcsar now.

Journal Entry 12 by mcsar at Richmond, British Columbia Canada on Friday, February 8, 2019
Arrived in Canada today. Thank you. I will start reading soon and keep the ring going.

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I liked the book and enjoyed Smith's writing. Like SerendipityN, while I did not find the characters likable, I remained interested in them and found them relatable.

Journal Entry 13 by mcsar at Next Reader, Bookray -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, March 14, 2019

Released 5 yrs ago (3/14/2019 UTC) at Next Reader, Bookray -- Controlled Releases

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to valpete.

Journal Entry 14 by valpete at Walnut Creek, California USA on Wednesday, March 20, 2019
I had forgotten I signed up for this. I've read one other book by this author, which I liked very much. Will get to it ASAP.
Thanks for including me.

Journal Entry 15 by valpete at Walnut Creek, California USA on Friday, May 3, 2019

Released 4 yrs ago (5/3/2019 UTC) at Walnut Creek, California USA

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I love this author's writing style! A very enjoyable read! Skipped the next person on the list.

Journal Entry 16 by conto at Lisboa (city), Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Hu-huuuuu! It's here!!
I can hardly believe it, it's been on my wishlist for so long :)))
I have a couple (well, 3 to be exact) books I must get to before this one, but since I'm the last one on this list, I believe there'll be no problem to take a litle bit longer before sending it back home, right freuju?
Thank you so much for sharing, and thank you valpete, for sending it across the Atlantic :)

Journal Entry 17 by conto at Lisboa (city), Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on Saturday, August 10, 2019
I did take my time with it. I'm sorry.
Even if I just discovered I'm not the last one in the list of readers anymore.
Anyway, it'll be on it's way again soon.

As for the book. It was a bit of a disappointment I must say. I had heard so much about it and about the writer, I guess I was expecting something else altogether.
It's not that I didn't like the writing, because I did. A lot. But then it seems that it just goes on and on without really getting somewhere. I liked several things in the book and several of the topics touched in it (and there are oh, so many of them) but it just never gets truly to the point, or to the bottom, with any of them, only on the surface of things and becoming just a drifting kind of prose, until it became quite boring at times. The feeling was like being with acquaintances who never become friends, whom you get to know but not quite, and whom you never truly understand the motivations to act in this or that way.

Well, maybe it just isn't my kind of author but I'm glad I took it off my list, so I'm happy to have read it. Thanks a lot for the opportunity freuju!

Journal Entry 18 by Maria-Nunes at Lisboa - City, Lisboa (cidade) Portugal on Friday, August 16, 2019
Arrived today. Thank you!

Journal Entry 19 by Maria-Nunes at Lisboa - City, Lisboa (cidade) Portugal on Thursday, August 29, 2019
I like Zaddie Smith very much.
I really liked reading this book. I read White Teeth some years ago, and I also liked it (probably even more than this one).

Thank you very much for this bookring, freuju.

Journal Entry 20 by Maria-Nunes at Lisboa - City, Lisboa (cidade) Portugal on Monday, June 21, 2021

Released 2 yrs ago (6/19/2021 UTC) at Lisboa - City, Lisboa (cidade) Portugal

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Released in York Burger, Lisboa.
RABCK to a friend of mine - hope she will enjoy this book :-)

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