book reviews and features
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
Friday, 03 May 2024
Iain Sinclair is a writer, film-maker, and psychogeographer extraordinaire. He began his career in the poetic avant-garde of the Sixties and Seventies, alongisde the likes of Ed Dorn and J. H.... Read more... |
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review - a view from the boundaries
Tuesday, 23 April 2024
In A History of the World in 47 Borders, Jonn Elledge takes an ostensibly dry subject – how maps and boundaries have shaped our world – and makes from it a diverting and informative read... Read more... |
Lisa Kaltenegger: Alien Earths review - a whole new world
Thursday, 18 April 2024
Our home planet orbits the medium-size star we call the Sun. There are unfathomably many more stars out there. We accepted that these are also suns a little while back, cosmically speaking, or a... Read more... |
Heather McCalden: The Observable Universe review - reflections from a damaged life
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Artist and writer, Heather McCalden, has produced her first book-length work. The Observable Universe examines, variously, her familial history, the death of her parents to AIDS, and the... Read more... |
Dorian Lynskey: Everything Must Go review - it's the end of the world as we know it
Wednesday, 10 April 2024
According to REM in 1987, “It’s the end of the world as we know it”. And while they sang about topical preoccupations – hurricanes, wildfires and plane crashes – they were really just varying a... Read more... |
Andrew O'Hagan: Caledonian Road review - London's Dickensian return
Tuesday, 02 April 2024
Andrew O’Hagan’s new novel, Caledonian Road, feels very much intended to be an epic, or at the very... Read more... |
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War: A Scenario review - on the inconceivable
Friday, 29 March 2024
"[A]n unimaginably beautiful day": this was how Kikue Shiota described the morning of the 6th of August, 1945, in Hiroshima. The day was soon to change, unimaginably, as the city was blitzed by... Read more... |
Anna Reid: A Nasty Little War - The West's Fight to Reverse the Russian Revolution review - home truths
Friday, 01 March 2024
During the Cold War, US presidents often claimed that the West and the Soviet Union had never fought one another directly. This observation... Read more... |
Tom Chatfield: Wise Animals review - on the changing world
Thursday, 22 February 2024
Consider a chimp peeling a stick which it will poke into a termite nest. It strikes us as a human gesture. Our primate cousin is fashioning a tool. Just as important, the peeled stick implies a... Read more... |
Sheila Heti: Alphabetical Diaries review - an A-Z of inner life
Tuesday, 20 February 2024
After a first read of the blurb for Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries, you might be forgiven for assuming that this is merely a gimmick. The book does what it says on the tin: each... Read more... |
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CVC, Concorde 2, Brighton review - they have the songs and t...
The joy of CVC, when they catch fire, is the zing of gatecrashing a gang of cheeky, very individual personalities having their own private party....
Hallé, Wong, Bridgewater Hall review - meeting a musical com...
Kahchun Wong, the Hallé’s principal conductor from the coming autumn season, presided in the Bridgewater Hall for the first time yesterday since...
Extract: Pariah Genius by Iain Sinclair
Iain Sinclair is a writer, film-maker, and psychogeographer extraordinaire. He began his career in the poetic avant-garde of the Sixties and...
Nezouh review - seeking magic in a war
The 21st century learnt afresh about the reality of carpet-bombed cities thanks to the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. And the...
Album: Dua Lipa - Radical Optimism
This album has a lot to live up to. Its predecessor Future Nostalgia came along just as the Covid crisis was properly kicking...
Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre review - impassioned agi...
On the morning of the press show of Laughing Boy, the BBC news website’s top story was about the abuse of children with learning...
Guildhall School Gold Medal 2024, Barbican review - quirky-w...
While the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra were performing Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie – weirdly, despite its size...
Album: Sia - Reasonable Woman
Sia has well and truly stepped into her power. Gone are the days of releasing songs that were pitched to megastars but turned down (“This Is...
Minority Report, Lyric Hammersmith Theatre review - ill-judg...
Towards the end of David Haig’s new adaptation of Philip...
Mitski, Usher Hall, Edinburgh review - cool and quirky, yet...
It was her 2018 album Be the Cowboy which saw Mitski propelled to stardom status. Laurel Hell, which followed in 2022...