16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

LIFE & ARTS BOOKS Business Books Fiction Non-Fiction

Books Add to myFT

Add to myFT Digest

Add this topic to your myFT Digest for news straight to your inbox

Add to myFT Digest

Weekend long reads

Amazon and the psychic toll of the modern labour
market
An insider account by a former warehouse employee shows that delighting consumers
comes at the expense of the lowest-paid workers

Review Fiction

https://www.ft.com/books 1/6
16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

The End of the End of the Earth by

Jonathan Franzen — strange
consolation
The author’s essays on the theme of apocalypse offer
a tough kind of hope

Review Biography and memoir

Eric Clapton: the man behind the riff
Human frailties are to the fore in a biography of the rock star guitarist

Review Non-Fiction
How the World Thinks by Julian Baggini — home truths
A bold analysis reframes western philosophy in the light of the more mystical traditions of the east

Review Biography and memoir

Eternal Boy by Matthew Dennison — life off the map
The joys and agonies that fed Kenneth Grahame’s classic are finely told in a biography

Review Biography and memoir

A German Officer in Occupied Paris by Ernst Jünger — Can we prise the prose from the
politics?
A German soldier-writer’s spellbinding war diary reminds us no one is just a camera

Review History books

To See Paris and Die by Eleonory Gilburd — a Soviet springtime
What happened when a closed society de-Stalinised, allowing its citizens a taste of western art and film?

FT Books Essay
China, America and the road to a new world order
As Pax Americana declines, are we headed for a Sino-centric future — or the absence of any global order at all?

Review Fiction
The April 3rd Incident by Yu Hua — all it takes is for one person to say so
A volume of wry short stories sheds light on the author’s early career

Review Fiction
George Saunders’s fantastic fox
https://www.ft.com/books 2/6
16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

The new short story Fox 8 uses Aesopian conventions and dark comedy to engage with modern themes of
environmental crisis

Review Biography and memoir

The Life of Saul Bellow by Zachary Leader — pot stirrer-in-chief
Saul Bellow’s ‘second act’ — successes and failures alike — is magnificently captured in the final volume of a
stupendous biography

Nilanjana Roy
How to read more in 2019
Everyone compains that they don’t have time to read. But you might be able to squeeze more
books into your life than you think

Most Read: Life & Arts

1 Why are boys falling behind at school?

2 Travel discoveries and disappointments of 2018

3 What I learnt from a year of reading only books by women

4 When it comes to British humour, the joke is on us

5 Eric Clapton: the man behind the riff

More on Books

DECEMBER 14, 2018

Review Fiction
Short review: Childhood by Gerard Reve Save

Tales of the joys and pains of life that linger in the mind

Review Fiction
The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley — the wolf border Save

https://www.ft.com/books 3/6
16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

No one is quite what they first seem in this modern retelling of ‘Beowulf’

Review Arts books

The Country House by Jeremy Musson and David Cannadine — that ‘gilded bondage’ Save

A fascinating new history of the English country home

Review Fiction
Short review: How to See Fairies by Charles van Sandwyk Save

An enchanting mix of illustration, verse and prose

Review Fiction
Short review: Warrior Boy by Virginia Clay Save

An eye-opening and affecting first novel

Review Fiction
Farewell, My Orange by Iwaki Kei — the fruits of labour Save

An admirable tale about the hardships and challenges of the immigrant experience manages to be
engaging yet determinedly unsentimental

Sam Leith
Shaken, if not stirred, by Bond’s drinking Save

007 is a fantasy — he does things that we may wish we could do safely, but cannot

Weekend long reads

What I learnt from a year of reading only books by women Save

Alice Fishburn set herself a challenge for 2018 to only read female authors. Here’s what she discovered

DECEMBER 10, 2018

Review
The Hell of Good Intentions, by Stephen Walt Save

Harvard professor’s book holds some uncomfortable truths for the Washington ‘blob’

DECEMBER 7, 2018

Review Science books

American Overdose by Chris McGreal — prescription for carnage Save

America’s opioid epidemic — a tale of greed, individual suffering and official incompetence — will blight
the country for years to come

https://www.ft.com/books 4/6
16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

Review Political books

Dreamers by Volker Weidermann — all power to the creatives Save

A gripping account of a brief moment when poets really were legislators

Review Arts books

Francis by Ann Wroe — the rhythms of the saint Save

A series of poems on the life of St Francis of Assisi is scarce on facts but rich in imagination

Review Crime books

Short review: Bloodline by Nigel McCrery Save

Two cops investigate the disappearance of a young woman in the secluded Spanish town that bears
her name

Review Crime books

Short review: One Law for the Rest of Us by Peter Murphy Save

The author cannily subverts the clichés of the legal genre in his all-too-topical narrative

DECEMBER 3, 2018

Review
The Future of Capitalism, by Paul Collier Save

A powerful dissection of contemporary failures that dares to suggest concrete reforms

NOVEMBER 30, 2018

Review Fiction
Insurrecto by Gina Apostol — director’s cut Save
A risk-taking and cinematic novel that looks at Duterte’s Philippines and the 1901 Balangiga massacre

Review Fiction
Saying goodbye to Lucia Berlin Save
A new set of posthumous publications by the cult writer mark her out as an important American voice

Review Fiction
Turbulence by David Szalay — the mile high-club Save

A book of 12 stories based around plane journeys explores the turmoil caused by physical and
emotional distance

Review Science fiction books

Short review: Early Riser by Jasper Fforde Save

https://www.ft.com/books 5/6
16/12/2018 Books | Financial Times

Naive but intrepid Charlie Worthing takes a job as a novice Winter Consul and uncovers a conspiracy
connected with a viral dream

Review Science fiction books

Short review: The Break Line by James Brabazon Save

A thought-provoking read, grounding its outlandish elements in solid realism and vivid characterisation

Review Fiction
A Different Drummer by William Melvin Kelley — free, free at last Save

A striking rediscovered novel reimagines the history of black lives in the 1950s Deep South

Review Fiction
Edinburgh by Alexander Chee — songs of innocence and experience Save

A young chorister endures a harrowing coming of age in this achingly beautiful novel

Review Science books

Einstein’s Monsters by Chris Impey — through the cosmos darkly Save

An astronomer lends gravity to this skilfully told history of the quest to find black holes

Review Biography and memoir

Churchill: Walking With Destiny/The Kremlin Letters — correspondents’ ball Save

Two biographies draw on letters and diaries to deliver a comprehensive picture of Winston Churchill
and his wartime allies

Review Biography and memoir

The contradictory Germaine Greer Save

Elizabeth Kleinhenz’s biography Germaine attempts to unpack the legacy of the opinion-shaper and
fallen icon

You are on page 1

How easy or hard was it to use FT.com today?

Leave feedback

https://www.ft.com/books 6/6