tue 01/07/2025

book reviews and features

Jesse Darling: Virgins review - going straight

Alice Brewer

Self-described ‘intermittent poet’ and 2023 Turner Prize-nominee Jesse Darling said this in a recent interview for Art Review: ‘I...

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Justin Lewis: Don't Stop the Music - A History of Pop Music, One Day at a Time review - deft and delightful pop almanac

Bernard Hughes

This splendid book proves that trivia need not be trivial, and that a miscellany of apparently disconnected facts can cohere, if done well. It is in the proud lineage of the “toilet book”, a form...

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Adam Biles: The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews review - the old curiosity bookshop

Lia Rockey

Over 10 years in the making, The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews reflects its namesake in more ways than one.

To those familiar, it is paean and tribute to one of the...

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Charlie Porter: Bring No Clothes - Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion review - dress to impress

India Lewis

It’s not hard to miss the fact that Bloomsbury is back in fashion at the moment. This summer, it felt like everyone’s Instagram story showed a...

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Adam Sisman: The Secret Life of John le Carré review - tinker, tailor, soldier, cheat

Bernard Hughes

This book is quite a sad read. I had been looking forward to it, as a posthumous supplement to Adam Sisman’s 2015 biography of John le Carré/David Cornwell, which, at the time, quite clearly drew...

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Caspar Henderson: A Book of Noises - Notes on the Auraculous review - a call to ears

Jon Turney

Have you ever considered the sheer range of sounds? You may think of deliberate human efforts to move the air: music and song, poetry or...

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'The people behind the postcards': an interview with Priya Hein, author of 'Riambel'

Hannah Hutching

Priya Hein’s debut novel, Riambel, is an excoriating examination of Mauritius’ socio-political structures and the colonial past from which they have sprung. Centred around Noemi, a young...

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Michael Peppiatt: Giacometti in Paris review - approaching the impossible

Jack Barron

We begin with a dead-end. In 1966, Michael Peppiatt – at the time “an obscure young man” – travelled to Paris to...

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Annie Ernaux: Shame review - the translation of pain

India Lewis

The latest translation of Annie Ernaux’s Shame – a text most closely akin to a long-form essay – is an...

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Warhol, Velázquez, and leaving things out: an interview with Lynne Tillman

Alice Brewer

Motion Sickness (1991) is the second novel published by the writer, art collector and cultural critic Lynne Tillman. It is difficult,...

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Semele, Royal Opera review - unholy smoke

Poor, slightly silly Semele fries at the sight of lover Jupiter casting off his mortal form, but in Congreve’s and Handel’s supposedly happy...

Sudan, Remember Us review - the revolution will be memorised

In 2019, French-Tunisian journalist and documentary filmmaker Hind Meddeb flew to Sudan after the overthrow of hated dictator Omar al-Bashir,...

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Over 100 years ago, John Christie envisaged Wagner’s Parsifal with limited forces in the Organ Room at Glyndebourne. He would have been...

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The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s...

Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - a battle of sunshine and...

Sometimes, as the first act of Beethoven’s Fidelio closes, the chorus of prisoners discreetly fade away backstage as their brief taste of...

Summer Laugh review - five comics gear up for the Fringe

Appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe has long been an expensive gig for comics. But while stand-ups may need only a microphone to ply...

Album: Brìghde Chaimbeul - Sunwise

The first five-and-a-half minutes of Sunwise’s opening track “Dùsgadh / Waking" are taken up by a drone. Played on the Scottish small...

Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play...

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The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the...

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