thu 14/08/2025

book reviews and features

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...

Read more...

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,...

Read more...

Celia Dale: Sheep's Clothing review - unsettling, mundane, and right on-trend

CP Hunter

Celia Dale published 13 novels between 1944 and her death in 2011. A majority of her these are often categorised – albeit loosely – as...

Read more...

Lutz Seiler: Pitch & Glint review - real verse power

Jack Barron

Reading the torrent of press-releases and blurbs on the many – and ever-growing – contemporary poetry collections over time, one starts to notice a distinct recurrence of certain buzzwords: ...

Read more...

Zadie Smith: The Fraud review - the trials we inherit

India Lewis

Zadie Smith’s latest novel, The Fraud, is her first venture into historical fiction – a fiction based...

Read more...

Caitlin Merrett King: Always Open Always Closed review - looking for an approach while trying to do the approach

Alice Brewer

Always Open Always Closed is Caitlin Merrett King’s first published work of fiction, and it begins...

Read more...

Marie Darrieussecq: Sleepless review - in search of lost sleep

Jack Barron

“I lost sleep.” So begins Marie Darrieussecq’s elegantly fitful book, Sleepless, now perceptively translated into...

Read more...

Tony Williams: Cole the Magnificent - fantastical tale blends myth, poetry and comedy

Bernard Hughes

Cole the Magnificent is a picaresque, fantastical tale of the life (or lives) of a man, Cole, following...

Read more...

Masha Karp: George Orwell and Russia review - dystopia's reality

Hugh Barnes

The war in Ukraine, which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin insists on calling a “special military operation”, may have given fresh urgency to...

Read more...

Henry Hoke: Open Throat review - if a lion could speak

India Lewis

I approached Henry Hoke’s fifth book, Open Throat, with some trepidation. A slim novel (156 pages), it...

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... ...
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, RSC, Stratford review - not qui...

I have two guilty secrets about the theatre – okay, two I’m prepared to own up to right here, right now. I quite enjoy some...

Orpheus and Eurydice, Opera Queensland/SCO, Edinburgh Intern...

There’s a lot to shout about in this Orpheus, especially the way it looks. In a thin year for staged opera at the Edinburgh International...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Eric Rushton / Bella Hull

Eric Rushton, Monkey Barrel ...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Horse of Jenin / Nowhere

The Horse of Jenin, Pleasance Dome ...

Beating Hearts review - kiss kiss, slam slam

Andrew Garfield was 29 when he played the teenage Spiderman and Jennifer Grey was 27 when she took on a decade-younger-than-her character called “...

Album: Emma Smith - Bitter Orange

Emma Smith, one time Puppini Sister, has established herself over the past decade or so as one of the UK’s most compelling jazz singers, now...

BBC Proms: Anoushka Shankar 'Chapters' review - so...

You can't explain stage presence like Anoushka Shankar’s. It just "is". When she steps out in front of a completely packed Royal Albert Hall, and...

Elschenbroich, Grynyuk / Fibonacci Quartet, Edinburgh Intern...

Leonard Elschenbroich and Alexei Grynyuk crafted a fine programme for their EIF recital, centring around Brahms’ relationship with the Schumanns....

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Fit Prince / Undersigned

The Fit Prince (who gets switched on the square in the frosty castle the night before (insert public holiday here)), Pleasance...

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