Top Gun: Maverick and the politics of the action hero
In its Reaganite military pomp, Top Gun seemed to mark the end of an era – but a new sequel shows it may not be over…
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Leo Robson
Leo Robson is a contributing writer to the New Statesman.
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Colm Tóibín: “I think, ‘I must be deep.’ Then I think, ‘Stop this nonsense, get on with the story’”
The Irish novelist on writing after chemotherapy, growing up gay “in the 19th century”, and winning the 2021 David…
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What to read in 2022: fiction
The year’s publishing highlights, including novels by Ali Smith, Jonathan Coe and Ottessa Moshfegh.
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George Saunders: “We’re in this intimate tennis game, the reader and the writer”
The Booker Prize-winning novelist on the Russian masters, the shortcuts to great work, and his new creative writing Substack.
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Mandy Patinkin on Stephen Sondheim: “I got to be in the room with Shakespeare. Who gets that?”
The actor reflects on the death of the great American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
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Reviewed in short: New books by Ann Patchett, Olivia Yallop, Duncan Weldon and Phil Burton-Cartledge
These Precious Days by Patchett, Break the Internet by Yallop, Muddling Through by Weldon and Falling Down by Burton-Cartledge.
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Natasha Brown: “It’s important to celebrate difficult novels”
The author on her Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted debut, health inequality, and the influence of bell hooks and Jane Austen.
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Claire-Louise Bennett: “The brink of adulthood is a very uncomfortable time”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted novelist on style, the problem with “promise”, and why Garibaldi biscuits are the best in the…
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Bernard Cornwell: “I always had the insane ambition to be a novelist”
The bestselling author on how to start writing, his upbringing with the Peculiar People, and why he brought back…
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