The banality of Vladimir Putin
A new biography of the Russian president details the extraordinary rise of an unremarkable man who learned how to exercise…
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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.
How TS Eliot found happiness
Withdrawn and prejudiced, the poet is hard to warm to – but Robert Crawford’s new biography shows how Eliot’s second…
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Reviewed in short: New books from Sophie Pavelle, Brendan Simms and Steven McGregor, Ana Kinsella and Gerald Murnane
Forget Me Not by Pavelle, The Silver Waterfall by Simms and McGregor, Look Here by Kinsella and Last Letter to…
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Geoff Dyer and the art of slacking off
The author’s workshy alter-egos made his books a delight. Now in sober late middle age, has the ultimate skiver lost…
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Out with the old: is neoliberalism really dying?
Despite our age of economic crisis, populism and pandemic, we may be living in the ruins of the neoliberal order…
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Bob Stanley’s pre-history of pop breathes life into a lost musical era
In Let’s Do It, the musician and journalist reveals how ragtime, jazz, blues and swing still shape today’s popular culture.
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Reviewed in Short: New books from Ramon Pacheco Pardo, Preti Taneja, Leo Damrosch and Hanna Bervoets
Shrimp to Whale by Pacheco Pardo, Aftermath by Taneja, Adventurer by Damrosch and We Had To Remove This Post by…
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Ottessa Moshfegh and the tedium of depravity
The American author’s new novel of medieval brutality aims for the Marquis de Sade but ends up closer to Shrek.
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