fri 04/07/2025

book reviews and features

Jessica Duchen: Myra Hess - National Treasure review - well-told life of a pioneering musician

Bernard Hughes

Myra Hess was one of the most important figures in British cultural life in the mid-20th century: the pre-eminent...

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Shon Faye: Love in Exile review - the greatest feeling

India Lewis

As Valentine’s Day crests around us, and lonely hearts come out of their winter hibernation, what better time to publish writer and journalist Shon Faye’s second book Love in Exile? In...

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Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe

Jon Turney

Working on materials was basic to human culture from the start: chipping at flint to make a hand-axe; fashioning bone or wood; drying hides. In time, people discovered that some materials,...

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Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edge

India Lewis

Taking on some of the contingent, nebulous quality of its subject, Jacqueline Feldman’s Precarious Lease examines the beginning...

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Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear

India Lewis

Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, Confessions, is a puzzle, a game of family secrets...

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Best of 2024: Books

theartsdesk

Billie Holiday sings again, Olivia Laing tends to her garden, and Biran Klaas takes a chance: our reviewers discuss their favourite...

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William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen

John Carvill

What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question and may be impossible to satisfactorily answer,...

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Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks

India Lewis

The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative journey through northern Europe in the 1980s. However,...

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Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown

Rachel Halliburton

How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness, the endless snow and ice, the polar bears? Did it...

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Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts

Jack Barron

Jon Fosse talks a lot about thinking. He also thinks – hard – about talking. His prolific and award-winning career in poetry, prose, and drama, might be said, in fact, to unfold a digressive...

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