Summary

Part I: In the World begins with a chapter titled “Northwest London Blues.” Here, author Zadie Smith begins with an anecdote about her and her daughter walking, on market day, past both the nineteenth-century Willesden Library and the more modern Willesden Green Library Centre. Smith claims that on market day she and others are able to imagine that their community is a “place of some beauty that deserves minimal preservation and care” (5). Smith describes the Willesden bookshop, which is run by a woman named Helen.

Smith then mentions the city council’s intention to demolish the library center and bookshop in order to create private luxury flats and retail space. Smith has complex feelings about the government's plans to get rid of public places and push for private development. She...