England is in a state
Amanda Craig’s new novel offers a snapshot of a society reeling from insecurity and division
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.
What did the Black Death ever do for us?
A history of the Black Death overlooks its more surprising developments
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Living with and without Paul Auster
Siri Hustvedt’s reflections on the death of her husband offer a wise meditation on grief and its many mutations
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The myth of English insularity
Tudor and Stuart England was more a porous nation than a sceptred isle
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The quintessential Colonel Gaddafi
In a new biography, the “mad dog of the Middle East” doesn’t quite emerge from his cartoonish persona
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Flesh, death and bohemia
Peter Hujar and Paul Thek were at the heart of New York’s 1960s art scene but preferred the fringes
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The examined life of Brian Dillon
The cult writer’s new memoir describes a life lived in citation, in proximity to other minds
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Foursomes in the time of cholera
Susan Pedersen’s new book describes the life of a powerful 19th-century quadruplet
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Whose liberty and how much equality?
American historiography is still infected by an uncritical strand of nationalism
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Michel Houellebecq’s mature ejaculation
In his new collection of poems, the novelist has become darker than ever
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The clever female baby boomer
Alison Light’s new memoir is the document of a self – and an era
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Nelio Biedermann is no wunderkind
He should have waited until he was 30 to publish Lazar
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How Charles Darwin humbled mankind
In his greatest work, published 150 years ago, Darwin destroyed our metaphysical status in an instant
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Jan-Werner Müller’s unfinished monument
Müller’s Street, Palace, Square feels full of unrealised potential
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Why the British do it worse
John Kampfner argues our self-defeating “hang-ups” stop us learning from our closest neighbours
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How the culture wars began
The Frankfurt School’s ideas have given rise to a conspiracy theory that “cultural Marxism” is destroying the West
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Stephen King is our Dickens
The American best-seller is the pre-eminent horror writer of our time
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How cricket bent its rules
The game’s history is full of instances of foul play
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Sylvia Townsend Warner’s obscure forces
Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes, published a century ago, is a powerful reverie on women’s interwar status
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Paging Prime Minister Farage
A semi-fictional account predicting how a future Reform government would unfold is thrilling – and chilling
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