Ben Rhodes’ empty words
This new history of America, told through political speeches, can’t see that progress truly comes through 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.
From the Marquis de Sade to Cardi B: the history of dangerous art
Is the cancellation of an artist ever justified?
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Daljit Nagra talks to himself
The poet’s new collection, Yiewsley, is a beautiful examination of his own childhood
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One man’s trash is another man’s Trash!
Simon Paré-Poupart’s memoir-cum-manifesto lifts the lid on rubbish
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Around the world in 18 summer reads
The New Statesman recommends our favourite beach reads
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Why the Islamic Republic of Iran endures
The brutal theocracy maintained from Tehran came to power on the back of decades of misrule
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George Forster: Enlightenment iconoclast
Andrea Wulf returns to the world of 18th-century intellectual adventurers, with a life of the naturalist George Forster
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Poetry’s debt to birdsong
The creatures of the air have for centuries inspired some of our finest writing, and they still do
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Ann Patchett’s broken families
In Patchett’s world, even the well-adjusted have hidden tales to tell
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Thank God for George Michael
Sathnam Sanghera’s biography is the first serious reckoning with Michael’s life and music
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Inside the great deprofessionalisation
AI is taking the humanity out of our jobs
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England is in a state
Amanda Craig’s new novel offers a snapshot of a society reeling from insecurity and division
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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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