Books of the year 2024
New Statesman writers and guests choose their favourite reading of the year.
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.
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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From Lauren Elkin to Elizabeth Strout: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Immaculate Forms by Helen King and Augustus the Strong by Tim Blanning.
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From Carol Woolton to Sonia Purnell: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Red Threads by Henry Bell and The Story of Nature by Jeremy Mynott.
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The fraught history of Christianity and sex
Diarmaid MacCulloch shows how for centuries the Church has tried to resolve the tension between sacred and profane.
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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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From Dan Jones to William Boyd: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Warsaw Tales by Antonia Lloyd Jones and Emperor of the Seas by Jack Weatherford.
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What Hillary Clinton knows
Despite moments of frustrating caution, her memoir Something Lost, Something Gained is revealing about Bill and exhilarating on her feminist…
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Who are Britain’s new aristocrats?
An elite by inheritance still holds sway but it has been joined by an elite of grafters.
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