The 20 best books of 2024
The New Statesman’s choice of the year’s essential fiction and non-fiction.
ByBook reviews
Read all the latest book reviews from the New Statesman and discover the best novels, non-fiction, essays and biographies. If you’re looking for something more specific, explore our sections dedicated to politics books and history books.
Anthony Burgess’s Napoleon complex
In Napoleon Symphony, the life of the French statesman was transformed into a virtuoso romp that still dazzles 50 years…
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From Andrew Michael Hurley to Johanna Ekström: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Collared: How We Made the Modern Dog by Chris Pearson and Untold Lessons by Maddalena Vaglio Tanet.
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From Jonathan Coe to Joan Smith: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Eurotrash by Christian Kracht and Every Valley by Charles King.
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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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Books of the year 2024
New Statesman writers and guests choose their favourite reading of the year.
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From Simon Jenkins to Tessa Hadley: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Patria: Lost Countries of South America by Laurence Blair and What Nails It by Greil Marcus.
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Hanif Kureishi’s interrupted life
In 2022 an accident left the novelist paralysed. His blackly comic memoir, Shattered, is a devastating portrait of an imprisoned…
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Ali Smith’s data dystopia
Her mind-expanding new novel Gliff draws battle lines between art, language and Big Tech.
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From Miriam Gold to Bendor Grosvenor: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring She’s Always Hungry by Eliza Clark and Recognising the Stranger by Isabella Hammad.
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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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Against the cult of profit
Making money for shareholders has become a fixation, John Kay’s new book shows – but it is a meagre definition…
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The best of the academic presses for autumn 2024
The New Statesman’s highlights, from Greek mythology to 1980s pop-synth and drawing to Christian nationalism
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From Robert McCrum to Adrian Tinniswood: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Taking the Lead by John Crace and The Silence of the Choir by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.
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Timothy Snyder’s liberty bell
The historian’s account of the failures of American freedom is earnest and uneven, but its message is vital.
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Alan Hollinghurst’s intimate vision
In the quietly remarkable novel Our Evenings, loving attention is paid to a mother-and-son relationship.
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How India made the ancient world
William Dalrymple’s The Golden Road places India, not China or Europe, as the global wellspring of learning and power.
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