book reviews and features
Emily St John Mandel: Sea of Tranquility review - time travel, pandemics and the simulation hypothesis
Tuesday, 26 April 2022
Emily St John Mandel’s wonderful novel of 2020, The Glass Hotel, featured people and places from her... Read more... |
Scholastique Mukasonga: The Barefoot Woman review - remembering Rwanda before 1994
Thursday, 14 April 2022
To read Scholastique Mukasonga’s memoir, The Barefoot Woman, beautifully translated from the French by... Read more... |
Extract: Catching Fire by Daniel Hahn
Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Daniel Hahn began his translation of Jamás el fuego nunca, a novel by experimental Chilean artist Diamela Eltit, in January 2021. Considering the careful, difficult but not impossible “... Read more... |
Alejandro Zambra: Chilean Poet review - from here to paternity
Tuesday, 05 April 2022
Time-honoured advice warns actors never to work with children or animals. Perhaps the literary equivalent should tell novelists not to invent other writers in their books. Especially poets. Unless... Read more... |
Extract: Where My Feet Fall - Going For A Walk in Twenty Stories
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
I began work on Where My Feet Fall a few months into the pandemic of 2020. After lockdown was announced we all became better walkers, and the collection took on greater resonance. ... Read more... |
Marianne Eloise: Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking review - bargaining with the devil
Wednesday, 23 March 2022
No mental health condition has become quite as kitsch as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its tacky shorthands – the hand washing,... Read more... |
María Gainza: Portrait of an Unknown Lady review – queens of the unreal
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
It’s no surprise that the theme of fakes and forgery appeals so much to writers, who traffic in plausible illusions and often believe (in María Gainza’s words) that truth is “just another well-... Read more... |
Salley Vickers: The Gardener review - nature has other ideas
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
A garden is a space defined by its limits. Whatever its contents in terms of style and species, and however manicured or apparently wild its appearance, what distinguishes a garden from its... Read more... |
Extract: My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, New Fiction by Afghan Women
Monday, 21 February 2022
"My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream." Batool Haidari’s words give this bold collection of stories... Read more... |
Thomas Halliday: Otherlands review - diving into the deep past
Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Life on Earth: David Attenborough has it covered, right? Well, globally, maybe, but not historically. He has presented world-spanning series on pretty much every kind of life except bacteria, but... Read more... |
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latest in today
Love Supreme Festival, Sunday review - eclectic jazz on the...
By day three of any festival things are usually winding down. But there was a sense that...
Album: Vyvyan - Y
After four years, three releases and a slew of remixes, the identity of spotlight-shunning producer Vyvyan ended up the subject of intense...
theartsdesk at the East Neuk Festival 2022 - on Cloud Nine f...
Last year’s relatively slimline East Neuk Festival felt like a feast in time of plague. This July everything was back to full strength in numerous...
Jessie Burton: The House of Fortune review - a muted, sensit...
A sequel is always a hard thing to write, especially if the book that precedes it is a bestseller, adapted for television and read by more than a...
Album: Viagra Boys - Cave World
The third album from Stockholm rowdies Viagra Boys doesn’t muck about with what they do, but it’s more persistently punkin’ than their last. There...
Mick Jagger: My Life as a Rolling Stone review, BBC Two - th...
At the beginning of this film, Mick Jagger says: “What most...
Alcina, Glyndebourne review - Handel on the strand
Reviewing the Grange Festival production of Tamerlano the other day, I noted the difficulty...
Favour, Bush Theatre review - Ambreen Razia's punchy ne...
Where should Leila live — Ilford or Kent? It doesn’t sound like an earth-shattering decision for a 15-year-old to make, but the stakes...
Album: Laura Veirs - Found Light
The last minute of Found Light’s third track “Seaside Haiku” is defined by the repetition of a single phrase: “give but don’t give too...
Music Reissues Weekly: Ferkat Al Ard - Oghneya
Oghneya opens with the extraordinary “Matar Al Sabah.” Jazzy, with an overt Brazilian feel it gently swings and swoons....