Books | Financial Times

How evolution left humans ill-equipped for modernity

With so much potential for change looming, three books evaluate the body that nature has left us with

Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart — states of play

A hedge-funder gives up his job and family to tour Trump’s America on a Greyhound bus, in this new novel

Review Life & Arts

Thomas Cromwell: the man who made modern England

A new biography promises to change our understanding of Tudor politics

FT Best of Weekend long reads

Bob Woodward’s startling account of a Teflon Trump

Two books by Woodward and Omarosa Manigault Newman reveal a president epically unsuited to the job

Review Science books

What’s Your Type? by Merve Emre — the eternal appeal of the Jung

How a mother and daughter reduced our personalities to just four letters

Normal People by Sally Rooney — asocial creatures

A dynamic novel about a lingering attraction between two young people from opposite sides of the tracks

Transcription by Kate Atkinson — when walls have ears

A typist secretly recording the words of Nazi sympathisers comes to realise the power of her position

States of Passion by Nihad Sirees — dance of desire

Men remain firmly on the sidelines in this alluring tale of female entertainers in Aleppo’s golden age

Review Biography and memoir

The Only Girl by Robin Green — tales from the counterculture

The freewheeling spirit of the 1960s is recalled in a frank memoir

In the Distance by Hernan Diaz — lone star

A poignant and picaresque tale about an émigré’s trek across 1800s America in search of his brother

Review Non-Fiction

Our Boys by Helen Parr — the fighting spirit

A tribute to a fallen uncle tells a salutary tale of what it means to serve

Review Biography and memoir

Always Another Country by Sisonke Msimang — the end of the Rainbow Nation?

An unflinching memoir challenges the myths of South Africa’s emergence from apartheid

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Monday, 17 September, 2018

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The Cost-Benefit Revolution, by Cass Sunstein
A valuable study of a quiet victory for technocrats
Friday, 14 September, 2018

FT & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award
Business Book of the Year 2018 — the shortlist
Future of capitalism, from universal basic income to India’s rise, dominates annual prize
Friday, 14 September, 2018

FT Best of
Weekend long reads
Read about mankind’s future in space, illegal immigrants in Texas, preventing wildfires, the new face of Palestine, a road trip in Paraguay, Trump’s White House — and much more
Friday, 14 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Short review: Rabbit and Bear by Julian Gough and Jim Field
An allegory about nationalism and immigration is well embedded in a witty story with illustrations
Friday, 14 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Short review: The Garden of Hope by Isabel Otter and Katie Rewse
This measured, delicate picture book is about dealing with loss in all its forms
Monday, 10 September, 2018

Podcast: Can you be a writer and a good parent? Plus: The Guilty Feminist
We ask author Lara Feigel and the FT’s Isabel Berwick whether the pram in the hall really is the enemy of good art
Monday, 10 September, 2018

Review Non-Fiction
Hostile Takeover by Thilo Sarrazin
An Islamophobic diatribe disguised as a work of scholarship
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Non-Fiction
The Beekeeper of Sinjar by Dunya Mikhail — mountain hero
A harrowing and timely account of the rescue of Yazidi women from Isis terror
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Now We Shall Be Entirely Free by Andrew Miller — spoils of war
This richly imagined Gothic tale, set against a backdrop of conflict, ventures from Spain to the Scottish isles
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Certain American States by Catherine Lacey — the get out
A collection of ‘hilariously talky’ short stories in which lonely characters often walk away from their own lives
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Distortion by Gautam Malkani — three’s company
An ambitious tale tackling split identity, the life of carers and the dangers of technology
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Fiction
Women Talking by Miriam Toews — the unspeakable truth
A Mennonite community is rocked by terrible crimes in this remarkable and timely novel
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Fiction
Fiction, home of the good deed
Susie Boyt on why kindness in literature, from Austen to Bellow, should be cherished and treated with caution
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Biography and memoir
Soho in the Eighties by Christopher Howse — bohemian rhapsody
A sketch of Soho’s celebrated drinkers reveals bullies, charlatans and chancers
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Non-Fiction
Corruption, vanity and greed: the story of 1MDB
Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s Billion Dollar Whale features a cast of hustlers, heads of state and Hollywood stars
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Non-Fiction
The case for paying more attention
Our love of distraction is proving harmful. In Attention, Joshua Cohen makes an eclectic argument for how to improve our lives
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Review Non-Fiction
Breaking News by Alan Rusbridger — a digital journey
The author has a fine record on the frontlines of the media revolution — but he was less successful at balancing the books
Friday, 7 September, 2018

Q&A FT Magazine
Q&A with ‘Mortal Engines’ author Philip Reeve
‘I always wanted to be some sort of show-off’
Wednesday, 5 September, 2018

FT Books Essay Michael Ignatieff
Is identity politics ruining democracy?
Michael Ignatieff on why we have to look beyond group identity and failed meritocracy
Tuesday, 4 September, 2018

Review Business books
FT business books of the month: September edition
Shake off your malaise, be a mentern, join the dots or chase the imagination gap
Monday, 3 September, 2018

FT Collections Populism and polarisation
Rich Russians, by Elisabeth Schimpfössl
A fresh look at how Russia’s elite sees itself
Friday, 31 August, 2018

Obituary
Alexander ‘Shura’ Shihwarg, restaurateur, 1923-2018
A Russian sinophile who fought with the British to defend Hong Kong
Friday, 31 August, 2018

Review Fiction
Ayiti by Roxane Gay — island views
A collection of stories about Haitian identity, immigration and the realities of the American dream
Friday, 31 August, 2018

Review Fiction
The Incendiaries by RO Kwon — fatal attraction
A blazing debut novel captures the lure of cults — and the vulnerability of those they ensnare
Friday, 31 August, 2018

Review Fiction
Paris Echo by Sebastian Faulks — ghosts of the past
From Occupation-era Paris to colonial Algeria, France’s unquiet histories are brought to life by a master storyteller