tue 30/09/2025

book reviews and features

Keiichiro Hirano: A Man review - the best kind of thriller

Charlie Stone

Keiichiro Hirano’s A Man has all the trappings of a gripping detective story: a bereaved wife, a...

Read more...

John Grisham: Camino Winds review - morality tale with a light touch

Marina Vaizey

John Grisham is a brand, in the sense that the reader relies on some sense of what the product is going to be. He is well up in the millions of sales, along with other writers under the “...

Read more...

Maria Reva: Good Citizens Need Not Fear review - tales of gloomy humour and absurdist charm

Jessica Payn

Maria Reva’s humorously gloomy debut collection, centring on the inhabitants of a block of stuffy apartments in Soviet (and...

Read more...

Khaled Nurul Hakim: The Book of Naseeb review – a bold debut

Daniel Baksi

A small-time heroin dealer harbours idealistic dreams of building a hospital “to help da limmless in Peshawar and Kabul”. This is the premise of The Book of Naseeb, the debut novel from...

Read more...

'What Grandma said (Grandma’s Corona)': sonnets by Claudia Daventry

Claudia Daventry

A year plagued by Coronavirus is surely a time to dust off a seldom-aired...

Read more...

Caroline Maclean: Circles and Squares review - adventurous art, progressive living and a good gossip

Marina Vaizey

There was a moment in the 1930s when it seemed that contemporary art, as practised in Britain, might join the...

Read more...

Rutger Bregman: Humankind, a Hopeful History review – nice guys finish first

Boyd Tonkin

In retrospect, we will surely see that British battles over the Covid-19 lockdown harboured within them a bitter but half-hidden war of ideas. On one side, the behavioural scientists who first...

Read more...

Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli - III of III

theartsdesk

At the end of an exhausting day's driving punctuated by disappointments and false leads, the narrator finds herself back at the Israeli town of Nirim where she spends the night. Slipping off...

Read more...

Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli - II of III

theartsdesk

The second half of Minor Detail is narrated in the first person by a young Palestinian woman who reads an article about the rape and murder of the captured girl. When she finds out...

Read more...

Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

theartsdesk

The first half of Minor Detail is set in an Israeli military camp in the Negev desert in August 1949, during the conflict celebrated as the War of Independence in Israel and a year...

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?

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £49,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Black Rabbit, Netflix review - grime and punishment in New Y...

They say no good deed goes unpunished, so when New York restaurateur Jake...

Kerry James Marshall: The Histories, Royal Academy review -...

This must be the first time a black artist has been honoured with a retrospective that fills the main galleries of the...

First Person: Manchester Camerata's Head of Artistic Pl...

Over the past decade, Manchester Camerata has gained a reputation for continually innovating and redefining what an orchestra can do. But what...

The Hack, ITV review - plodding anatomy of twin UK scandals

The latest instalment of the ITV drama department’s attempts at trial by television is another anatomy of a scandal, but with little of...

Punch, Apollo Theatre review - powerful play about the stren...

For the first part of Punch it feels as if you’re riding a roller coaster, watching the world speed and loop past as you see it from the...

Cinderella/La Cenerentola, English National Opera review - t...

When you go to the prince’s ball, would you prefer a night of sobriety or excess? Julia Burbach’s new production of Rossini’s Cinderella...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy - The Mo...

“It's a Happening Thing,” January 1967’s debut single from...

Goldscheider, Brother Tree Sound, Kings Place review - music...

Last night’s concert at Kings Place was a programme of...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters