Non-fiction

The Pathology of Democracy by Jacques-Alain Miller
The pathology in question, it seems, is the desire of the state to regulate psychotherapy - to intervene in that intimate relationship between therapist and what is called, for want of a better word, 'client'. Here is Miller's reply on behalf of all psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in France.
Ron Weatherill

Why? What happens when people give reasons… and why by Charles Tilly
Tilly shows that it is a mistake to counterpose 'the real reason' for anything to a false 'story'. The best explanation is not one that is plucked from the ether of objectivity, unsullied by human hands, but one that resonates with specific human concerns.
Dolan Cummings

In Praise of Ideology by Maurice Saatchi
It seems Lord Saatchi either doesn't understand irony or he doesn't understand conservatism: of course Marx championed self-realisation; but upholding self-realisation seems a strikingly progressive ideal for a 'conservative'.
Alex Hochuli

Why the French Don't Like Headscarves by John R Bowen
Bowen comes to the conclusion that, in passing legislation on this issue, the political elites were perpetuating a French tradition from the time of Rousseau; that 'political thinkers have long conceived of laws to teach the people moral lessons'.
Clarissa Woodberry

The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred by Niall Ferguson
Ferguson gives much analytical weight to the concept of 'hatred', yet never really tells us what it is. Instead, he relies on the vague idea that hatred is one of humanity`s innate instincts.
Rob Weatherill

The Good Fight: Why Liberals - and Only Liberals - Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again by Peter Beinart
Beinart's book reflects not a new liberal philosophy so much as the strange convergence of a segment of (neo)liberal and a segment of (neo)conservative thinking and practice, in which ethically-oriented war is the means by which a lax and decadent America can achieve moral renewal.
Alex Gourevitch

Boris: the Rise of Boris Johnson by Andrew Gimson
Of course there is some discussion of Johnson's politics, but it is kept at a very general level; quite possibly, one suspects, to avoid alienating the significant proportion of the Boris fanbase who either care not one jot about his policies, or enjoy Boris-the-personality in spite of them.
Andrew Haydon

On Royalty by Jeremy Paxman
It is true, Paxman accepts, that by either an act of parliament or by a revolution, the British monarchy could be dismantled, but we must wait for his final words before we're really clear of his sentiment: 'But why bother?'
Amol Rajan

Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance by Ian Buruma
The appearance is a straightforward war between the Enlightenment and the multiculturalists, but Buruma does not throw in his lot wholly behind one team. Rather, he recognises how the 'Enlightenment' has become a soundbite in itself, hollowed out of its original meaning.
Munira Mirza

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 by Andrew Roberts
It becomes apparent not too far in that Roberts has taken on the case for the defence of both the British and American empires at a time when they have been under attack for decades, both from a general anti/post-colonialism, and in particular as a result of the Iraq debacle.
Guy Rundle

Rousseau's Dog by David Edmonds and John Eidinow
Contrary to the conclusions of Rousseau's Dog, it was a minor atavistic accord between Hume and Rousseau against the rational current of the Enlightenment which then prompted their petulant bout when Hume refused to emulate Rousseau's noble savagery.
Aidan Campbell

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia by Michael Gray
Opening any old place I discover that Tony Garnier played 1,700 gigs with Dylan, that Jerry Garcia died in a drug rehab clinic, aged 53, and that Dylan had once thought of performing George and Ira Gershwin's 'Swannee' before rejecting it for 'Soon'.
Barb Jungr

A Lover of Unreason: the Life and Tragic Death of Assia Wevill by Yehuda Koren and Eilat Negev
It transpires rather disturbingly that Hughes tried to mould his lover to the Stepford wife stereotype of the 1950s by issuing a 'draft constitution' of household rules. This rather absurdly conceived list actually included a commandment not to lie in bed after 8am.
Sarah Anthony

How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime by Sidney Blumenthal
The Bush administration has practised a politics of retrenchment. Far from perfecting a form of authoritarian populist rule, as Blumenthal argues, the Bush administration, and his Republican Party, have found it increasingly difficult to maintain their coherence.
Chris Bickerton

Empire in Denial by David Chandler
There is obviously a lot of truth in Chandler's characterisation of post-Cold War Western elites as exhausted and visionless, but I wonder how we get from the clueless elite to the deep, costly interventions of 'empire in denial'. Why isn't simply doing nothing an option?
Lee Jones

Seventies: The Sights, Sounds and Ideas of a Brilliant Decade by Howard Sounes
This book is not the beginning of the end of sterotyping the Seventies, and the decade will, no doubt, still be the subject of over-simplification. But it does provide a useful introduction to its cultural wares, and makes us realise that the Seventies deserve serious re-evaluation.
Nicky Charlish

Battlefield: Decisive Conflicts in History by Richard Holmes (ed)
There is never any sense of what is at stake. Holmes remarks that 'it is the deepest irony that the French Revolution, with its ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity, led to a quarter-century of bloody war'. There is nothing ironic about this at all: these are things human beings have always had to fight for.
Lee Jones

Essay review: The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton
The current 'Happiness' agenda needs beefing up with substantial intellectual input, and de Botton may be the man for the job. But in serving this function, de Botton is reluctant overtly to mention Modernism's most mystical category. For him, a true homage to the perfect home must find some way to convey a void.
Aidan Campbell

Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do About It by Sue Palmer
Palmer's book might be welcomed by teachers, but it does a real disservice to parents by reinforcing the widespread conception, among professionals at least, that they are not up to the job.
Wendy Earle

Mandela: A Critical Life by Tom Lodge
Mandela's life has already been documented so extensively that any potential biographer faces a daunting prospect. This book is not the revisionist account of Mandela's life that the title might suggest. Where Lodge differs from other biographers is in the attention he pays to Mandela's background and childhood.
Clarissa Woodberry

The Black Hole: Money, Myth and Empire by Jan Dalley
For an event which had a quasi-mythological hold on the British imagination, the legend of the Black Hole of Calcutta is shrouded in mystery. This book covers the formation of the East India company in great detail and then deals with the impact of the myth of the Black Hole on the British psyche.
Clarissa Woodberry

White Heat: A History of Britain in the Swinging Sixties by Dominic Sandbrook
Few commentators have been prepared to dissent from the prevailing view of the Sixties as a period of exciting change. But Sandbrook revises our opinions about what many still venerate as a cherished myth. Outside the metropolis - or, rather, Chelsea, Mayfair and the West End - how far did Britain swing?
Nicky Charlish

Muhajababes by Allegra Stratton
The book reveals a new type of devout, hijab-wearing girl who wears tight-fitting jeans, follows religious practices and yet loves the stream of pop video-clips appearing on Arabic television. These girls seem to represent the unpredictable fusion of Western commercialism with new-style spirituality.
Munira Mirza

Where the Truth Lies: Trust and Morality in PR and Journalism by Julia Hobsbawm (ed)
What this book fails to address is precisely that which it sets out to explore - what level of effect on journalism does PR have? Does PR compromise or enhance the public’s understanding of the world? And is there sometimes a case to be made suggesting that PR offers a better degree of truth than journalism?
Andrew Haydon

Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 by JH Elliott
The British and Spanish empires have both been closely and exhaustively studied separately, but Elliott's book is an important synthesis. It is also an outstanding example of historical writing that manages to combine serious, rigorous historical scholarship with a style that commends it to the general reader.   
Michael Savage

Human Nature - Fact and Fiction Robin Headlam Wells and Johnjoe McFadden (eds.)
Two unifying principles inform the collection as a whole: it is time, after decades of postmodern critique, for the question of human nature, and humanism, to be brought back into intellectual sphere; and it is time, after an even longer period of academic specialisation, for interdisciplinary dialogue
Simon Cooke

Shattered Lives - Children Who Live with Courage and Dignity by Camila Batmangheldijh
Batmanghelidjh claims to uphold the resilience of her subjects, but simultaneously denies them the agency needed to break free of the destructive cycles of abuse, or the intrusive recall of childhood traumas in later life, to which she insists they are or will be subject.
David Clements

An End to Suffering: the Buddha in the World by Pankaj Mishra
Mishra deftly situates the Buddha in the context of modern and ancient creeds, quoting many artists, scientists, and philosophers, including 'Albert Einstein [who] called Buddhism the religion of the future since it was compatible with modern science'.
Namit Arora

China Syndrome: the True Story of the 21st Century's First Great Epidemic by Karl Rao Greenfield
The book is about what China's rash economic boom may unleash upon the rest of us. In every chapter we start afresh along the same formula, a new figure has an epiphany and realises that, yes, we probably are all going to die. Eventually. The laboriousness of the argument gets a little wearing
Emily Hill

Stranger in a Strange Land - Encounters in a Disunited States by Gary Younge
Arranged under four headings - War, Race, Politics and Culture - the collection is desperately in need of a strong editorial hand. Interested parties could probably make a better fist of it themselves: go to the Guardian website, do a search for ‘Gary Younge,’ and copy all the articles which appeal into a Word document. Hey presto! 
Andrew Haydon

European Universalism: the Rhetoric of Power by Immanuel Wallerstein
Wallerstein attempts no less than a history of European universalist thought from the sixteenth century to the present day. What emerges is a thin overview that continues to treat ideas as mere epiphenomena of the only logic that matters to Wallerstein: the inexorable expansion of capitalism. 
Lee Jones

The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950 by Avner Offer
Offer provides a comprehensive examination of the problems associated with economic growth. But he confuses association with causation: it may be true both that affluence has increased and that happiness has not, but it does not necessarily follow that one caused the other. 
Daniel Ben-Ami 

After the Neocons by Francis Fukuyama
Fukuyama’s latest book provides a clear summary of the origins and beliefs of the neoconservative movement. But given that the central promise of After the Neocons is the provision of alternative means to promote democracy short of war, Fukuyama's institutional suggestions are remarkably flaccid. 
Lee Jones

British Government in Crisis by Sir Christopher Foster
This book tells a fascinating story of how a focus on targets and professionalism in the public sector has led to really bad and ineffective governance. But while Foster is strong on description, his analysis is weak and his suggestions frivolous because he is astonishingly disengaged in politics.
Michael Savage

Self Made Man - My Year Disguised as a Man by Norah Vincent
On goes the false stubble and out steps our intrepid heroine - as Ned - into the male world. But she seems unwilling to make a firm decision about whether gender has grey areas or is either starkly pink or blue. The suspicion comes to mind that she has to maintain a certain bipolarity between the sexes in order to give the book its selling-point.
Nicky Charlish

John Osborne - A Patriot For Us by John Heilpern
Heilpern throws new light on his subject – the dream of every biographer – by means of his access to the playwright’s private notebooks, over 20 of which had survived sporadically from the 1950s until Osborne’s death in 1994.
Nicky Charlish

The Parallax View by Slavoj Žižek
It is easy to mock Žižek for his obscurity, his obsessive interest in dissecting modish films and bad jokes, his endless repetition of previous work (whole sections copied almost verbatim) and his offensive pomposity. It is harder to convey the sheer thrill of reading this stuff.
Michael Savage

Civilisation: a New History of the Western World by Roger Osborne
Osborne believes art's role should be to console grief-stricken humanity for relinquishing its primeval paradise. On the contrary, a dynamic humanity would do well to sample from time to time marginal spheres of culture to have its key assumptions negated and transgressed.
Aidan Campbell

Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain by Stefan Collini
The largely unnoticed elephant on the carpet in the contemporary debate about intellectuals, which is left undisturbed by Collini, is the end of the Cold War and the demise of ideological politics.
Dolan Cummings

DC Confidential: The Controversial Memoirs of Britain's Ambassador to the US at the Time of 9/11 and the Iraq War by Christopher Meyer
The character that emerges from these ill-judged pages is a dubious one at best. His public school brand of anti-intellectualism, betrayed most starkly in his unquestioning acceptance of pre-emption, is his worst failing.
Lee Jones

Plato's Children: The State We Are In by Anthony O'Hear
If this seems tough, we should be encouraged by the fact that, unlike some other commentators, O'Hear doesn't feel that escaping from the cave that is modern Britain is an instrinsically hopeless task.
Nicky Charlish

Unspeak™ by Steven Poole
Surely, the whole notion of changing people's minds through changing people's language was the motivation behind the speech codes and sensitivity training that appeared in academia from the 1980s onwards. Poole is silent on PC.
Tim Footman

The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the New World Order by David Runciman
Runciman's originality lies in his understanding of the ways in which a longstanding dilemma of modern politics expresses itself in the current period, but his inability to integrate this into his material on the nature of the modern state pushes him into highly speculative musings on the psychology of Tony Blair.
Chris Bickerton

Edge of the Orison: In the Traces of John Clare's 'Journey Out Of Essex' by Iain Sinclair
Sinclair carries out his work in the guise of a kind of hard-boiled druid, both incisively sceptical and visionary. 'The reality is democratic, anyone can play. All it requires is open eyes and stout boots. Start moving and the path reveals itself.'
Simon Cooke

'A Million Little Pieces' fallout - on James Frey
It is a little rich when the expectation and demand in publishing increasingly is for nastier, sadder, more despicable sides of human life to be reeled off, for publishers to complain when writers then try it on.
Alan Miller

'Status Anxiety' anxiety - on Alain de Botton
The art, the philosophy, the politics, the Christianity, and the bohemia - de Botton's solutions to status anxiety - are always brought forth in support of his case, never in opposition. Never does de Botton put down something that he disagrees with, and then disagree with it.
Amol Rajan

Never Had It So Good: A History of Britain from Suez to the Beatles by Dominic Sandbrook
Where Sandbrook really makes his mark is in drily debunking some standard myths that have been propagated about the sixties. The concept of 'suburban blues' - a sense of alienation supposedly suffered by suburb dwellers - was a snobbish myth: most dwellers in the 'burbs' were happy with their lot.
Nicky Charlish

Going mad about Going Sane by Adam Phillips
Phillips avoids discussing florid insanity as such, rather like Foucault said psychiatry would always be bound to do. Unkindly, one suspects that real madness would freak Phillips, with his measured tones and carefully constructed paradoxes and reversals.
Rob Weatherill