How terror came home on 7/7
In Three Weeks in July, Adam Wishart and James Nally show how the Islamist bomb attacks of July 2005 changed…
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.
The endless variety of England’s folk traditions
Lally MacBeth’s attempt to chronicle of-the-people culture in detail is a treasure trove of both British folk memory and new…
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The earworms of Erik Satie
The dapper composer who invented background music was driven by a profound if offbeat religiosity.
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Jacinda Ardern’s unexamined life
In her memoir, the former prime minister seems more concerned with the symbols of politics than the actual politics the prompted…
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Giorgia Meloni’s selective memory
The Italian prime minister’s autobiography revises her and her country’s history. But Meloni’s success is a template for right populist…
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How a Moscow archivist exposed the KGB, file by file
Gordon Corera’s account of the audacious counter-intelligence operative Vasili Mitrokhin is non-fiction that reads like a spy thriller.
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How to do it like a movie star
The lessons an intimacy coordinator is teaching the film industry about real sex apply off screen and on.
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The search for queer cinema
Ryan Gilbey’s unconventional memoir It Used to Be Witches is wrapped in the film critic’s study of LGBTQ+ movie-making.
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Princess Diana’s kinder Britain
A new biography plays down the royal’s cultural impact – but she softened the hard edges of the Thatcher era.
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From Barbara Demick to Emily Kasriel: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring The Buried City by Gabriel Zuchtriegel and Poor Ghost! by Gabriel Flynn.
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Sayaka Murata’s strange new world
Her latest novel, Vanishing World, is a surprisingly fearful book, one which conflates biological essentialism with what is good and…
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Fang Fang’s acts of resistance
The Chinese author’s controversial novels are powerful narratives of patriarchal violence.
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The ghost of Muriel Spark
In her work and life the writer was obsessed with biography – but when she authorised her own she loathed…
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English literature’s last stand
Stefan Collini’s new book explores why such a prestigious academic discipline finds itself on the margins of modern society.
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How Russia became a franchise of the Wagner Group
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup was the beginning, not the end of a new age of mercenary conflict.
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The People’s Republic of iPhone
How Apple unwittingly assisted China’s global technological dominance.
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Have we reached peak humanity?
Johan Norberg’s history of civilisation is an impressive conceptual achievement – but it has little to say about our own…
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The epic of James Joyce
How Richard Ellmann’s capacious 1959 biography shaped modern life writing.
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Neo-Nazi safari
How close can any journalist get to the English far right?
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From Helen Oyeyemi to bell hooks: new books reviewed in short
Also featuring Irascible by Adrian Clark and Richard Calvocoressi and To Have or to Hold by Sophie Pavelle.
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