Jonathan Coe’s Bournville: Britannia chained
The novelist’s piercing satire charts 75 years of British history, ending with a righteously angry attack on the inhumanity of…
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.
The dark side of DNA editing
Genetic engineering can lead to great medical advances but, as Matthew Cobb’s new book shows, it also brings alarming ethical…
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Richard Reeves: “We have to rescript masculinity”
The author and former adviser to Nick Clegg reflects on the crisis facing boys and men today.
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Surrender: praying in the church of Bono
In his account of being “saved” by love and religion, the U2 frontman’s sincerity overpowers the scorn of his critics.
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A glimpse into Goldman Sachs’ gilded cage
Jamie Fiore Higgins’s insider account reveals the grim reality of life at the summit of capitalism.
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Bob Dylan’s problem with women
In The Philosophy of Modern Song, 62 of the 66 featured songs are performed by men. Is the 81-year-old songwriter…
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How the Treasury quietly runs Britain
A new history of the department shows that, as Liz Truss discovered to her cost, its “abacus economics” has never…
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From Louise Glück to Rachel Aviv: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring Susan L Shirk on China under Xi Jinping and Ryan Gingeras on the Ottoman Empire.
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How Donald Trump rose to power
Maggie Haberman’s Confidence Man is the best account yet of Trump’s path to the presidency – and a crucial guide…
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The Passenger: The phantom world of Cormac McCarthy
In The Passenger, his first novel for 16 years, the great American writer offers a study of living without answers.
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How oil become the world’s most contested resource
Keith Fisher’s A Pipeline Runs Through It charts how oil revolutionised transport and war, and continues to shape today’s geopolitics.
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Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka: “You don’t know who you’re going to offend”
The Sri Lankan novelist on growing up amid civil war, turning trauma into satire, and winning the 2022 prize.
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How the greatest minds of the Enlightenment united in a small town in Germany
In 1790s Jena a group of thinkers including Friedrich Schiller and Goethe built the intellectual foundations of today’s world.
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John le Carré’s acts of deception
Even in his love affairs, the spy novelist used tradecraft. Has his double life come to overshadow his work?
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From the NS archive: But for the Grace of God
20 May 1977: Almost anybody afloat in a poem from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s complete works has reason to regret the…
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From Vigdis Hjorth to The Waste Land: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring essays by Mia Mercado and After the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport.
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How the housing crisis shaped modern Britain
The country is blighted by landlordism, homelessness and Thatcher’s legacy.
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Why DH Lawrence still gets under our skin
His vexatious, evolving style demonstrates a capacity to face the world as sensitively and honestly as possible.
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First review: The Waste Land by TS Eliot
3 November 1923: A first review from the archives of Eliot’s great poem.
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Why Annie Ernaux deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature
With clinical precision and revelatory intimacy, the French memoirist reinvigorated the art of life-writing.
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