book reviews and features
theartsdesk Q&A: Amina Cain on her first novel and her eternal fascination with suggestion
Monday, 22 February 2021
Amina Cain is a writer of near-naked spaces and roomy characters. Her debut collection of short fiction, I... Read more... |
Jackie Kay: Bessie Smith review – vivid writing about the Empress of the Blues
Thursday, 18 February 2021
Blues singer Bessie Smith (1894-... Read more... |
Patricia Lockwood: No One is Talking About This review - first novel goes beyond the internet
Tuesday, 16 February 2021
This is a novel, says Patricia Lockwood in her Twitter feed, about being very inside the... Read more... |
CLR James: Minty Alley review - love and betrayal in the barrack-yard
Monday, 08 February 2021
CLR James came to London from Trinidad in 1932, clutching the manuscript of his first and only novel. He soon found work, writing about cricket for the Manchester Guardian, as well as a... Read more... |
Tabitha Lasley: Sea State review - a one-woman odyssey through UK oil
Thursday, 04 February 2021
Straight off the bat, Tabitha Lasley’s soon-to-be ex-boss points out the fatal flaw in her life-changing project. Jettisoning her job at a women’s magazine, a long-term boyfriend, a cramped London... Read more... |
Francis Spufford: Light Perpetual review - time regained
Tuesday, 02 February 2021
On 25 November 1944, a German V2 rocket struck the Woolworths store in New Cross at Saturday lunchtime. It killed 168 people. Francis Spufford’s second... Read more... |
Alice Ash: Paradise Block review - a matrix-like collection that reinvents the short story genre
Monday, 01 February 2021
“Burglar alarms jangled through the empty hallways of Paradise Block.” In this ramshackle, lonely tenement, such alarms might be one’s only company. Yet, in this intricate collection of... Read more... |
Eddie S Glaude Jr: Begin Again - James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today review - can America avoid the fire this time?
Tuesday, 26 January 2021
I suspect that the work of James Baldwin is not all that familiar to readers in Britain, perhaps not even to... Read more... |
Olivia Sudjic: Asylum Road review - trauma, barely suppressed
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
In Asylum Road, Olivia Sudjic's third book, everything is purposeful, each loaded gun introduced... Read more... |
Raven Leilani: Luster - portrait of the artist as a black millennial woman
Tuesday, 19 January 2021
One of the finer episodes in Raven Leilani’s startling debut (which contains an embarrassment of fine episodes)... Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
Presumed Innocent, Apple TV+ review - you read the book and...
Scott Turow published his cunningly-wrought legal thriller in 1987, and Alan J Pakula’s powerful movie version, starring Harrison Ford, appeared...
Music Reissues Weekly: Margo Guryan - Words and Music
Late summer 1966. Jazz was Margo Guryan’s thing. She was not interested in pop music. This changed when she was played The Beach Boys’s “God Only...
Bach's Mass in B Minor, Collegium Vocale Gent, Herreweg...
There’s a masterful subtlety to Philippe Herreweghe’s interpretation of Bach’s last great choral work – it shuns blazing transcendence for a sense...
Sorcery review - a tale of shapeshifting revenge
Islands off the coast of southern Chile, to the Spanish and German settlers of the 19th century, represented the edge of the world. To the...
The Moor review - Yorkshire chiller is ambitious but muddled
A number of films in recent years have added a distinctly local flavour to the folk-horror genre. Mark Jenkin was inspired by...
Album: John Moreland - Visitor
The mournful, lonesome voice of John Moreland from Bixby, Oklahoma, will be known by a few, but not many, in this country. The 12 songs on his...
Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - doub...
The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the...
Àma Gloria review - small-scale triumph with a big emotional...
In Marie Amachoukeli’s Àma Gloria there’s a remarkable performance by a child actor, Louise...
Susquatch Sunset review - nature red in tooth and claw (albe...
There’s a category of movies that are best seen having read nothing about them. Susquatch Sunset falls into that blood group as...
Jazz Emu, Soho Theatre review - delightfully daft musical sp...
Jazz Emu bounds on to the stage, launching into a song that talks about the importance of team work and how he has no ego. But strangely enough,...