Goodreads is degrading our literary culture
Everyone can, and should, be a critic. But the reviews website is having a sinister effect on books.
ByNew Times,
New Thinking.
Discover the best contemporary literature with the New Statesman’s expert reviews. From debut novels to short stories and literary veterans, get inspired here.
Everyone can, and should, be a critic. But the reviews website is having a sinister effect on books.
ByMoralising critics forget the importance of fiction holding up a mirror to society’s flaws.
ByIn his career-defining Border Trilogy, the late novelist summoned the ghosts of America’s bloody history.
ByAlso featuring Anna Metcalfe’s Chrysalis and Octavia Bright’s This Ragged Grace.
ByIn inventing a figure who rubbed shoulders with David Bowie and Susan Sontag, the American novelist thrillingly subverts the conventions…
ByThe year’s publishing highlights, including new novels by Salman Rushdie, Diana Evans and Eleanor Catton.
ByHer new novel raises the question: is the genre code for a thriller that simply isn’t very thrilling?
ByRushdie’s new novel, completed before his attack, is a fable that displays his overweening faith in narrative.
ByAlso featuring Tomorrow Perhaps the Future by Sarah Watling and Away From Beloved Lover by Dee Peyok.
ByThe latest show to profit from our obsession with dystopia reveals the limits of the genre.
ByAlso featuring Pegasus by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud and Sensational by Ashley Ward.
ByThe Shards, the author’s first novel in 13 years, is an Eighties-set autofiction thriller that plays on our cultural addiction…
ByThis under-powered story of a morbid teenage friendship in rural France cannot avoid comparisons to the Neapolitan Quartet.
ByIn The Passenger, his first novel for 16 years, the great American writer offers a study of living without answers.
ByAlso featuring titles by Lawrence Osborne and Matthew Yeomans.
ByMarías’ masterful expression of his characters’ psychological weather, combined with Margaret Jull Costa’s gifted translation, makes for rewarding reading.
ByHow a bestselling debut novel about a group of murderous students became a cult classic.
ByThe Blue Commons by Standing, Ghost Signs by Hennigan, Milk Teeth by Andrews and The Arctic by Paterson.
ByMagic and nature help children confront their fears in the best new books for young readers.
ByThe New Statesman’s selection of essential recent releases.
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