Party Animals: My Family and other Communists
by David Aaronovitch (Jonathan Cape, £17.99)
The collapse of communism in 1989 is the most significant event of our lifetimes but one which will continue to be surrounded by myth-making and reinvention for years to come. The political thinking that led up to it was despatched to the realms of historical curiosity and of lost causes, until the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party in 2015. When the primary question posed by any audience was “What on earth were they thinking of?”, it sometimes seems as if credulity might be suspended across the board.