The road that built England
The country’s elusive identity resides not in a National Trust garden, but on the thundering dual carriageway of the A1.
By
Books
Latest in
Books
Who are the white working class?
A deeply reported survey of a much-mythologised slice of Britain reveals a heterogeneous, complex demographic.
By
From Omar El Akkad to Laura Spinney: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Open, Heaven by Seán Hewitt and Mythica by Emily Hauser.
By
Joan Didion without her style
The writer’s posthumous therapy journal is raw and unvarnished – the most direct book she never wrote.
By
Joe Dunthorne’s lessons in chemistry
The novelist thought his great-grandfather’s memoir would be a story to be proud of. He found something else.
By
Brian Friel’s vanishing world
In the playwright’s short stories, modernity collides with an older, more mysterious sense of place.
By
Fear and loathing in Liverpool
Why a “left-wing city” can still host a race riot.
By
The best books of 2025 so far
From urgent new fiction to the inside story of Keir Starmer’s Labour, the New Statesman picks the season’s essential reading.
By