Locking down with Kafka
How the great writer, in his airless, claustrophobic fictions, provides a guide to living in the pandemic age.
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War against truth
How Vanessa Springora’s Consent tries to transcend the #MeToo moment it created
A French memoir of sexual abuse created a political storm – but is it, as its author suggests, “first and…
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How Keats lives on
His radical depictions of desire and oblivion changed the course of English poetry – and, 200 years after his…
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NS Recommends: New books from Eliot Higgins, Matthew Kneale, Jane Smiley and Sam Mills
We are Bellingcat by Higgins, The Rome Plague Diaries by Kneale, The Strays of Paris by Smiley and Chauvo-Feminism by Mills.
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The rise of the climate dude
Bill Gates’s faith in a technological fix for climate change is typical of privileged men who think they can…
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Tom Fort’s Casting Shadows is an excellent, balanced portrait of fisher folk in Britain
Fort’s new book is alive to the poetry that stirs the human soul while fishing.
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The NS Poem: Repair is a Failing Trade
A new poem by Ali Lewis.
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How Richard Parkes Bonington exported the English landscape tradition to France
Alongside the watercolourist Thomas Girtin, Bonington was the lost boy of English romantic art.
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Matthew Syed’s Sideways takes a second look at Stockholm Syndrome
Is it just a sexist trope?
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Julien Baker: “I saw music as religion”
The indie-rock artist on freeing her faith – and her songwriting – from the constraints of ideology.
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Charles Hazlewood’s Beethoven & Me cleverly deconstructs the composer’s music
Serious, high-minded and brilliant – this is a stunning lesson in not patronising audiences.
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How In the Cut offers a disturbing look at the dark side of desire
Jane Campion’s 2003 film is an ugly, frightening exploration of the danger that comes with being a woman attracted…
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The BBC and the battle for truth
Can the corporation save itself and the nation from fake news and culture wars?
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Life without liberty: how Covid turned Paris into a city of fear
A strict curfew, tough police measures and rising crime mean tensions are running high in the French capital.
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Voters across the world have rallied around their leaders – and Boris Johnson has benefited
The Prime Minister is enjoying a vaccine bounce. But can he open up a decisive lead over Keir Starmer?
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The Madonna-whore complex is still alive in straight men, denying women basic humanity
When men learn to separate the idea of personhood from the idea of sex, it enables the darkest of…
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Why using gender-neutral language risks excluding one minority group to include another
The costs of confusing public health messaging are suffered more by some groups – such as those who speak little…
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Sasha Swire’s Diary: Squabbling birds, Priti Patel’s bloodlust, and why Keir Starmer won’t save Labour
Patel has always been an arch-opportunist, just like the buzzard – but I’m afraid Starmer is as grey as a…
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Why should Joe Biden be different when US foreign policy has always been dictated by self-interest?
American censure of foreign human rights abuses felt especially hollow under Donald Trump, but the US’s moral authority was weakened…
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While many learned to bake or sew in lockdown, I have revelled in the beauty of isolation itself
Enforced isolation has brought less familiar pleasures, such as finally getting my bookshelves in order.
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The Prem has achieved the impossible. It turns out there is such a thing as too much football
Four live games on Saturday, four again on Sunday. And did I watch them all? Of course I did.
ByEmail [email protected] if you would like to be the New Statesman‘s Subscriber of the Week.
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This England: Snow place like home
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s Richard II, refers to the whole of Britain…
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Learning to make my own clothes has brought joy, structure and beauty to a strange year
Making something from nothing this lockdown has soothed everything, except my bank balance.
By
I never expected to see snow in Brighton but it’s here – aimless and not settling. Sound familiar?
I feel we all are in our own versions of Waiting for Godot. Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes,…
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A loss of smell may be one of Covid’s lesser symptoms – but for cooks it’s life-changing
Around 65 per cent of Covid patients suffer from anosmia, leaving foods tasting rotten and metallic.
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How Keir Starmer lost Generation Left
A party which seeks to abandon its ideas-driven youth wing is doomed to failure, something all successful Labour leaders…
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First thoughts: Meghan Markle, the future of the NHS and how the Tories abandoned small business
The Conservatives seem to have forgotten about the people who were once their most faithful supporters, and created a market…
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Commons Confidential: Rhodes won’t fall
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
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MMT economist Stephanie Kelton: “Donald Trump changed the terms of economic debate”
The former Bernie Sanders adviser on why the pandemic has shown the US and UK governments can never run out of…
By
The fight over Britney Spears
The theme of Framing Britney Spears is an ancient one: the disempowerment of a woman on the grounds of mental instability.
By
Letter of the week: Beauty in the banal
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced…
By
Leader: The future of the BBC
The broadcaster is a force for the common good and a flawed but necessary institution.
By The NS Poem: Repair is a Failing Trade
A new poem by Ali Lewis.
By NS Recommends: New books from Eliot Higgins, Matthew Kneale, Jane Smiley and Sam Mills
We are Bellingcat by Higgins, The Rome Plague Diaries by Kneale, The Strays of Paris by Smiley and Chauvo-Feminism by Mills.
By Matthew Syed’s Sideways takes a second look at Stockholm Syndrome
Is it just a sexist trope?
By The rise of the climate dude
Bill Gates’s faith in a technological fix for climate change is typical of privileged men who think they can…
By Charles Hazlewood’s Beethoven & Me cleverly deconstructs the composer’s music
Serious, high-minded and brilliant – this is a stunning lesson in not patronising audiences.
By How In the Cut offers a disturbing look at the dark side of desire
Jane Campion’s 2003 film is an ugly, frightening exploration of the danger that comes with being a woman attracted…
By Tom Fort’s Casting Shadows is an excellent, balanced portrait of fisher folk in Britain
Fort’s new book is alive to the poetry that stirs the human soul while fishing.
By Julien Baker: “I saw music as religion”
The indie-rock artist on freeing her faith – and her songwriting – from the constraints of ideology.
By A loss of smell may be one of Covid’s lesser symptoms – but for cooks it’s life-changing
Around 65 per cent of Covid patients suffer from anosmia, leaving foods tasting rotten and metallic.
By First thoughts: Meghan Markle, the future of the NHS and how the Tories abandoned small business
The Conservatives seem to have forgotten about the people who were once their most faithful supporters, and created a market…
By This England: Snow place like home
This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s Richard II, refers to the whole of Britain…
By MMT economist Stephanie Kelton: “Donald Trump changed the terms of economic debate”
The former Bernie Sanders adviser on why the pandemic has shown the US and UK governments can never run out of…
By Learning to make my own clothes has brought joy, structure and beauty to a strange year
Making something from nothing this lockdown has soothed everything, except my bank balance.
By I never expected to see snow in Brighton but it’s here – aimless and not settling. Sound familiar?
I feel we all are in our own versions of Waiting for Godot. Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes,…
By Commons Confidential: Rhodes won’t fall
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
By The Prem has achieved the impossible. It turns out there is such a thing as too much football
Four live games on Saturday, four again on Sunday. And did I watch them all? Of course I did.
By How Keir Starmer lost Generation Left
A party which seeks to abandon its ideas-driven youth wing is doomed to failure, something all successful Labour leaders…
ByEmail [email protected] if you would like to be the New Statesman‘s Subscriber of the Week.
By The Madonna-whore complex is still alive in straight men, denying women basic humanity
When men learn to separate the idea of personhood from the idea of sex, it enables the darkest of…
By Why using gender-neutral language risks excluding one minority group to include another
The costs of confusing public health messaging are suffered more by some groups – such as those who speak little…
By While many learned to bake or sew in lockdown, I have revelled in the beauty of isolation itself
Enforced isolation has brought less familiar pleasures, such as finally getting my bookshelves in order.
By Sasha Swire’s Diary: Squabbling birds, Priti Patel’s bloodlust, and why Keir Starmer won’t save Labour
Patel has always been an arch-opportunist, just like the buzzard – but I’m afraid Starmer is as grey as a…
By Why should Joe Biden be different when US foreign policy has always been dictated by self-interest?
American censure of foreign human rights abuses felt especially hollow under Donald Trump, but the US’s moral authority was weakened…
By Voters across the world have rallied around their leaders – and Boris Johnson has benefited
The Prime Minister is enjoying a vaccine bounce. But can he open up a decisive lead over Keir Starmer?
By Letter of the week: Beauty in the banal
A selection of the best letters received from our readers this week. Email [email protected] to have your thoughts voiced…
By Leader: The future of the BBC
The broadcaster is a force for the common good and a flawed but necessary institution.
By The fight over Britney Spears
The theme of Framing Britney Spears is an ancient one: the disempowerment of a woman on the grounds of mental instability.
By