book reviews and features
10 Questions for novelist Mieko Kawakami
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Mieko Kawakami sits firmly amongst the Japanese literati for her sharp and pensive depictions of life in... Read more... |
Samantha Walton: Everybody Needs Beauty review - the well of the world
Tuesday, 20 July 2021
In the opening poem of Samantha Walton's 2018 collection, Self Heal, the speaker is on the tube, that evergreen metaphor of capital's specific barrelling momentum. The tube "will... Read more... |
Test Signal: Northern Anthology of New Writing review – core writing from England's regions
Friday, 16 July 2021
“On the Ordinance Survey map, it has no name”, writes Andrew Michael Hurley, of the wood that nevertheless gives its name to his essay. “Clavicle Wood” provides the first chapter in the ... Read more... |
Adam Mars-Jones: Batlava Lake review - pride and prejudice in the Kosovo War
Friday, 16 July 2021
For a slim book of some 100 pages, Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones is deceptively meandering. The novella is narrated by Barry Ashton, an engineer attached to the British Army troops... Read more... |
Danielle Evans: The Office of Historical Corrections review - what happens when history comes knocking
Wednesday, 16 June 2021
There’s something refreshing about fiction you can easily trace back to the question “what if... Read more... |
Anna Neima: The Utopians review – after horror, six quests for the good life
Tuesday, 15 June 2021
Not long after the Nazis came to power, Eberhard Arnold sent a manifesto to Adolf Hitler. The Protestant preacher urged the dictator to “embrace universal love”. With his wife Emmy, Eberhard had... Read more... |
Victoria Mas: The Mad Women's Ball review - compelling plot meets disquieting history
Tuesday, 15 June 2021
To this day, if you take a stroll down Paris’ Boulevard de l’Hôpital, you’ll come across an imposing building: the... Read more... |
Extract: David Lan's As If By Chance
Monday, 14 June 2021
In June 2001 the London Festival of International Theatre brought Amir Nizar Zuabi’s Alive from ... Read more... |
Elinor Cleghorn: Unwell Women review – misunderstanding and misdiagnosis
Monday, 14 June 2021
I’m one of the women in the pages of Elinor Cleghorn’s new history of the female body, Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World. I’ve dealt with strange... Read more... |
Ed Miliband: Go Big - How to Fix Our World review - reasons to hope
Monday, 07 June 2021
Almost alone among my friends, I liked and admired Ed Miliband, renewing my on-off relationship with the Labour... Read more... |
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latest in today
The Two Character Play, Hampstead Theatre review - tender, p...
It’s the trivia question no one ever thought to ask: where was the only Tennessee Williams play premiered outside America first performed? The...
10 Questions for novelist Mieko Kawakami
Mieko Kawakami sits firmly amongst the Japanese literati for her...
Professor T, ITV review - whimsical tales of boffinly detect...
ITV’s new detective mystery, Professor T, is an...
Album: Willow - Lately I Feel Everything
Willow Smith has done more during her life than the average 20-year-old. The daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, she bounced off her...
Reissue CDs Weekly: Chris Barber - A Trailblazer's Lega...
The book included with this splendid box set dedicated to British jazz innovator Chris Barber includes a series of quotes paying tribute to his...
Off the Rails review - go for the scenery, not the script
Mamma Mia! hovers unhelpfully over every frame of Off the Rails, a road...
Reclaiming Amy, BBC Two review - Winehouse family and friend...
“My worst fear? What am I scared of?” Amy Winehouse ponders. She pauses thoughtfully: “Myself.”
Ten years to the day since she died, ...
Album: Anne-Marie - Therapy
Anne-Marie Nicholson is a hard-working young woman from Essex whose career description is “Global Girl-next-door Pop Star”. She has incrementally...
Le Comte Ory, Garsington Opera review - high musical style a...
Play it straight and you’ll get more laughs: that’s the standard advice on great operatic comedies like the masterpieces of the Gilbert &...