The cutting wit of Alan Rickman
In the late actor’s diaries, his merciless verdicts on showbiz idiocy are tempered by a deep loyalty and humanity.
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.
We can’t consign Boris Johnson to history yet
Andrew Gimson’s biography of the former prime minister describes a man who can pull off a miracle. With the Tories…
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Why “Jerusalem” is the anthem England needs
William Blake’s poem, set to music by Hubert Parry, is viewed by some as patriotic, and others as a progressive…
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Is America worth keeping?
Richard Rorty, the philosopher who predicted Trump, was scathing about the US’s failings but believed in the country’s capacity to…
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Hilary Mantel: “The writer occupies both past and present. She is never absent from the story”
In the novelist’s final published work, she considered the “creative friction” behind her Wolf Hall trilogy.
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Football’s data delusion
A new book by Rory Smith looks at why the English Premier League is still searching for its Moneyball moment.
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The vision of Ralph Vaughan Williams
In reviving local and popular musical traditions, the composer found haunting new expressions of Englishness.
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From Elizabeth Strout to Robert Harris: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring How To Speak Whale by Tom Mustill and a history of the Nineties by James Brooke-Smith.
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Red love, for all
Family is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care, according to the writer and academic Sophie…
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AN Wilson: the assembly-line intellectual
The writer’s exasperating new memoir offers a full dinner service of clichés and an insight into the glib fogeyism of…
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From Maggie O’Farrell to Sayaka Murata: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring Sick Note by Gareth Millward and a biography of Steely Dan’s Donald Fagen.
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What Harold Wilson can teach Keir Starmer
A new biography shows how one of Labour’s most successful leaders kept the party united at all costs.
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Fifty years of Richard Mabey’s Food for Free
How the author’s 1972 guide to foraging anticipated today’s appetite for local, seasonal and sustainable eating.
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The long shadow of Chairman Mao
How China’s uneven ascent has been driven by debt and the Communist Party’s obsessive pursuit of social stability.
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From Jim Crace to Cosey Fanni Tutti: recent books reviewed in short
Also featuring titles by Lawrence Osborne and Matthew Yeomans.
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Henry Marsh confronts his mortality
As a neurosurgeon, Marsh was comfortable with death. But in his new memoir And Finally, he finds himself on the…
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Ed Smith and the courage of conviction
In his new book, the former England cricket team selector recalls what he has learned about doubt and decisions.
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Agatha Christie’s secret worlds
After her infamous 11-day disappearance in 1926, the author retreated from public view. Lucy Worsley’s new biography claims to solve…
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Reviewed in short: New books by Jayne Buxton, Edward Enninful, Simon Heffer and Emma Donoghue
The Great Plant-Based Con by Buxton, A Visible Man by Enninful, Henry “Chips” Channon: The Diaries (Volume 3) edited by…
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Donna Tartt’s The Secret History at 30
How a bestselling debut novel about a group of murderous students became a cult classic.
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