book reviews and features
Robert Menasse: The Capital review - much more than just an EU satireSunday, 10 March 2019
Forty years ago this July, Simone Veil gave her inaugural speech as first President of the European Parliament. She had many issues to include. Peace came first; as a survivor of Auschwitz and the... Read more... |
Sadie Jones: The Snakes review - lacking feelingSunday, 03 March 2019
Bea and Dan are a young married couple. They have a mortgage on their small flat in Holloway and met while out clubbing in Peckham. She’s a plain-looking, modest and hard-working psychotherapist;... Read more... |
George Szirtes: The Photographer at Sixteen review – how grief becomes artSunday, 24 February 2019
How long does it take for grief to crystallise into art? No timetable can ever set that date. The poet George Szirtes’s mother took her own life, after previous attempts, during the hot summer of... Read more... |
Sam Bourne: To Kill the Truth review - taut thriller of big ideasSunday, 24 February 2019
Great libraries burning, historians murdered: someone somewhere is removing the past by obliterating the ways... Read more... |
Richard J Evans: Eric Hobsbawm - A Life in History review - mesmerisingly readableSunday, 17 February 2019
This is an astonishing book: in its breadth, depth and detail and also in its almost palpable, and sometimes unpalatable, admiration of its... Read more... |
Tana French: The Wych Elm review - a lucky man and his downfallSunday, 17 February 2019
A Tana French crime novel is never just a thriller. Probably more acclaimed in the USA than the UK (she gets rave reviews in the New Yorker and the New York Times) French always... Read more... |
Jill Abramson: Merchants of Truth review - news in the age of digital disruptionSunday, 10 February 2019
It’s more than a little ironic when journalists who grew up in the upstart world of digital media, with all its mash-ups, plagiarism and (yes) theft, accuse a print journalist with a distinguished... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Robert MacFarlane's Spell SongsWednesday, 06 February 2019
With books including Mountains of the Mind, The Wild Places, The Old Ways and Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane has established himself as one of the... Read more... |
Chloe Aridjis: Sea Monsters review - a teenage bestiarySunday, 03 February 2019
We've all been there. The disappointing fling. The gently shattered illusions. The abortive holiday eliding languor and boredom. Teenage ennui. Revels peopled by runaways. Talking animals. Talking... Read more... |
Kristen Roupenian: You Know You Want This review - twisted talesSunday, 27 January 2019
A one-night stand between a female college student, Margot, whose part-time job is selling snacks at the cinema, and thirtyish Robert, a customer, goes pathetically awry. It was disappointing,... Read more... |
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