The 20 best books of 2024
The New Statesman’s choice of the year’s essential fiction and non-fiction.
ByNon-fiction
Discover the latest non-fiction books and must-reads with the New Statesman’s expert reviews. Including biographies, music books, political writing and more.
The meaning of ecstasy
Simon Critchley’s On Mysticism shows how the language of religious rapture can help us teach us how to live.
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In praise of herd mentality
The best crowds are joyful expressions of democracy and belonging. So why do we fear them so much?
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Chris Hoy’s race against time
The Olympic cyclist’s memoir All that Matters reflects on the terminal cancer diagnosis that tested his resilience to the limit.
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Kevin Roberts’s fire-breathing American right
In his book Dawn’s Early Light, the architect of Project 2025 preaches the necessity of burning Washington’s “elite” institutions to…
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How to survive the age of anger
In Josh Cohen’s All the Rage, a psychoanalyst offers a path through the divisive world of online grievance and populist…
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The political afterlife of Paradise Lost
From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.
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The atrocity exhibition
Over a single night in 2015, terrorists killed 130 people in Paris. In Emmanuel Carrère’s account of the ensuing trial,…
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Claud Cockburn, the original guerrilla journalist
His reporting was fuelled by a cool contempt for authority.
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Lisa Marie Presley takes us behind Graceland’s velvet curtain
From Here to the Great Unknown – a memoir of life as Elvis’s daughter – is a story of generational…
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Alexei Navalny’s chronicle of a death foretold
The enemy of Putin survived the first attempt on his life. His memoir Patriot reveals why he returned to Russia…
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How Labour won – and how they could lose in 2029
New books by Anushka Asthana and Michael Ashcroft show that the lessons of 2024 are sobering for both parties.
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Richard Dawkins, the gene genie
The great scientist strays into speculation in The Genetic Book of the Dead, his latest defence of his “selfish gene”…
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Myths of the great statesmen
New studies of Winston Churchill and Harold Wilson show the rewards and perils of political biography.
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Malcolm Gladwell’s cult of smartness
The educated rationalists addressed by Revenge of the Tipping Point are sometimes the dumbest – and baddest – of them…
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Keir Starmer’s union problem
The government wants to reset its relationship with organised labour – but history shows this won’t be an easy task.
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How Goethe sold his soul to Faust
A new biography by AN Wilson shows how the playwright, poet, scientist and statesman poured himself into his greatest work.
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Paul Gauguin’s art monster myth
Sue Prideaux’s biography of the unruly French painter shows his story was more complicated than that of colonial seducer.
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Long live the low life
Jeremy Clarke’s final Spectator columns, written after his cancer diagnosis, are witty, well balanced and devoid of self-pity.
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How motherhood was weaponised
Is child-rearing political or deeply personal? Helen Charman’s new history reckons with the tension between mother and state.
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