A trip to the GMB sofa and a lesson for lying politicians
Also this week: awkward encounters at my book launch and Prince Harry takes on the Mirror.
ByBiographies
Read all the latest reviews from New Statesman writers of biographies and memoirs.
From the war in Ukraine to the life of Roger Deakin: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Anna Metcalfe’s Chrysalis and Octavia Bright’s This Ragged Grace.
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The memeification of George Orwell
The writer has become a national treasure, moral arbiter and begetter of biographies: do we need a new one?
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Why read life-writing?
Joanna Biggs’ A Life of One’s Own looks to the letters and journals of literary women for guidance. Can they…
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Soldiers in love
Men at War, Luke Turner’s tender account of servicemen’s transgressive private lives, transforms our understanding of the Second World War.
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Derek Parfit: the perfectionist at All Souls
Brilliant and eccentric, the Oxford philosopher spent his career grappling with fundamental moral questions.
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From Amy Key to Tom Clark: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Eve by Claire Horn and A Stranger in Your Own City by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad.
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George Eliot’s marriage plot
In her work, the novelist developed a radical philosophy of relationships. In her life, she put it into practice.
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How Noël Coward became the archetypal English success
A new biography shows how he began life as a revolutionary and ended it hosting the Queen Mother.
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The infinite art of John Donne
His life was blighted by poverty, but his poetry made exhilarating connections between sex, faith and death.
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The blurred ethics of memoir
Blake Morrison’s account of sibling tragedy passes its moral questions on to the reader.
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Pamela Anderson’s fantasy life
In her memoir Love, Pamela the model and actress reveals that despite the trauma and abuse she still sees her…
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From Cariad Lloyd to Ayòbámi Adébáyò: new titles reviewed in short
Also featuring Tomorrow Perhaps the Future by Sarah Watling and Away From Beloved Lover by Dee Peyok.
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From Don Paterson to Brigitte Reimann: new titles reviewed in short
Also featuring Pegasus by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud and Sensational by Ashley Ward.
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Boris Johnson is writing a memoir. Will we be able to trust it?
The problem with prime ministers’ autobiographies. Plus: self-indulgent podcasts, perfect pianos and the genius of Vermeer.
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Prince Harry’s Spare breaks UK non-fiction book sales records
The memoir appears to have beaten growing “Harry fatigue”.
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What Norman Mailer can teach us
It is right to condemn the writer’s violent chauvinism – but a literature that has lost the power to challenge is…
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Prince Harry’s Spare is a deeply uncomfortable read
Throughout the book’s 400 pages runs a single theme: the need for closure after a lifetime of repressed trauma.
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The secret lives of Katherine Mansfield
A century after the writer’s death, a new biography shows how she withstood colonial prejudice and terminal illness to produce…
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The Year of the Cat: feline fellowship and the meaning of life
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s memoir of adopting a kitten doubles as a study of anxiety, parenthood and purpose.
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