Zadie Smith on

What good reading involves. From a KCRW's Bookworm interview:

But the problem with readers, the idea we’ve been given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principal is, 'I should sit here and be entertained.' And the more classical model is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and the artist gives you. That’s an incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true.

Zadie Smith says that she's been preparing a lecture on this subject to give in New York in a few weeks. I haven't read The Autograph Man. I really liked White Teeth and On Beauty. However, where Zadie really distinguishes herself for me are her essays. The one she wrote for Kafka for The New Republic was amazing.