Cultural Capital

Reflections on books and the arts from the New Statesman culture desk

Read all about it: NS Books of the Year 2012

The New Statesman’s friends and contributors choose their favourite books of 2012.

By New Statesman Published 29 November 2012 12:14

Image: Lori Nix (Library)

Leo Robson

Nadine Gordimer’s No Time Like the Present (Bloomsbury, £18.99), which uses a mixed-race marriage to explore South Africa under Mbeki and Zuma, is a masterpiece. Philip Hensher apparently cannot stop writing novels, nor, when they are as rich as Scenes from Early Life (Fourth Estate, £18.99), would we want him to; he is becoming the most dependable of English novelists. Michael Anesko’s Monopolising the Master: Henry James and the Politics of Modern Literary Scholarship (Stanford University Press, £30.50), about Leon Edel’s manipulation of Henry James’s descendants, is a gripping and groundbreaking book. The essay collection continues to thrive; of the many I came across this year, the best were Jonathan Meades’s Museum Without Walls (Unbound, £18.99), Dwight Macdonald’s Masscult and Midcult (New York Review Books Classics, £9.99), Tom Bissell’s Magic Hours (McSweeney’s, £9.99) and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead (Vintage, £9.99).

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2 comments

Fri, 2012-11-30 00:07 — Natacha (not verified)

Odd that Adonis shoule choose "Finnish Lessons" since it describes the particularly successful education system in Finland which is pretty much the polar opposite of everything Adonis has advocated in our education system.

His support for Free schools and Academies, doesn't sit well with the more unified system in Finland. His point about thestatus of teaching being high in Finland ignores the fact that this is achieved by giving teachers (CLASS teachers NOT Headteachers) more professional autonimy than they ever get in British schools, especially in the academies and Free schools that he supports. This status is also achieved without anything like Ofsted, without league tables and with politicians consulting teachers on any changes to the system.

A far cry from our system, in particular most of what Adonis advocates.

Thu, 2012-11-29 22:55 — Old Indy (not verified)

...So basically saying we should appologize, sorry - "be honest" about New Labour's failings (Brown's, not Blair's of course!) while accepting, sorry, "be candid" of the Tory cuts. Or maybe he really just happen to choose THAT particular book... via David Miliband. While you're at it, am sure Blair would also LOVE it!