BOOKS reviews of books about culture

Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands, British Library

Jasper Rees Monday, 14 May 2012

Wordsworth would not be happy. The bard of Grasmere once wrote a poem deploring the new-fangled habit of tourists wandering about the lakes with a book in hand. “A practice very common,” he...

theartsdesk in Budapest: Hay Goes to Hungary

Dylan Moore Thursday, 10 May 2012

Four weeks ahead of its core event in the Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye the world’s leading festival of literature, ideas and the arts rolls into Budapest. Celebrating its 25th year and 15th...

theartsdesk at the Laugharne Weekend

Dylan Moore Wednesday, 18 April 2012

The Laugharne Weekend has become a fixture in the crowded calendar of festivals that now punctuates not just high days and holidays but the whole six months that make up British Summer Time. Carving...

The Real Mad Men

Ismene Brown Monday, 26 March 2012

The compulsive TV series about the Sixties advertising industry, Mad Men, opens its fifth season tomorrow night (on Sky Atlantic only, chiz), overflowing to the brim with its usual drinking, smoking...

Charles Dickens, Theatre and Dance Critic-at-Large

Ismene Brown Thursday, 09 February 2012

When a young Charles Dickens visited New York in 1842 with his wife, he strolled down Broadway, happened upon an unusual dance and naturally checked out theatreland. As his bicentenary is celebrated...

The Bicentenary of the Birth of Charles Dickens, Westminster Abbey

Judith Flanders Tuesday, 07 February 2012

Why? The question really needs to be asked. Why all the hoopla, the adaptations, reprints, books, comics, tweets, no doubt Facebook pages too. Did we do this for Thackeray last year? Will we do it...

Extract: The Book of Drugs by Mike Doughty

theartsdesk Saturday, 07 January 2012

I have been an admirer of Mike Doughty as a singer and songwriter since picking up Soul Coughing’s first two CDs at a car boot sale for 50p each. I was drawn by the sinister, Lynchian art work and...

Q&A Special: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

Jasper Rees Friday, 16 December 2011

When he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus, Christopher Hitchens carried on talking. He gave a number of riveting interviews – with Lynn Barber in The Sunday Times, Andrew Anthony in The...

theartsdesk in Kerala: Making Hay in God's Own Country

Dylan Moore Sunday, 04 December 2011

Thiruvananthapuram, capital city of the state of Kerala in the far south-west of India, is as crowded with people as its name is with syllables. By mid-November, most of the monsoon rains have passed...

Interview: Novelist Gillian Slovo

Jasper Rees Monday, 28 November 2011

“To my friend Craig.” As all writers must, Gillian Slovo will put her signature to copies of her 2008 novel, Black Orchids, for queues of readers. No other writer will have performed this promotional...

Halloween Special: Patrick McGrath on Sheridan Le Fanu's horror stories

Patrick McGrath Monday, 31 October 2011

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, son of a Protestant clergyman and grand-nephew of the playwright Sheridan, was born in Dublin in 1814. He spent part of his boyhood in County Limerick, where from local...

Interview: Tintin, The Reluctant Movie Star

Jasper Rees Saturday, 22 October 2011

A reporter can be certain of two things: death, and the ephemerality of journalism. Written yesterday, published today, an article will usually be forgotten by tomorrow. The one exception who proves...

Extract: 'Til Death Us Do Part' - Dickens's first biographer

Claire Tomalin Saturday, 22 October 2011

Over their lifelong friendship Dickens sometimes mocked Forster and quarrelled furiously with him, but he was the only man to whom he confided his most private experiences and feelings, and he never...

theartsdesk Q&A: Biographer Claire Tomalin on Charles Dickens

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 18 October 2011

By next year, the bicentenary of his birth, the tally of Charles Dickens’s biographers will come ever closer to 100. The English language’s most celebrated novelist repays repeated study, of course,...

What I'm Reading: Conductor Andrew Litton

David Nice Thursday, 15 September 2011

Newly knighted with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit for his services to the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, American conductor and pianist Andrew Litton is a musician who believes in the nurturing...

What I'm Reading: Musician Justin Adams

Hilary Whitney Tuesday, 13 September 2011

Justin Adams is considered to be one of the UK’s most original guitarists and record producers and is an extremely versatile collaborator. He was brought up in the Middle East - his father was a...