sat 05/07/2025

book reviews and features

Marcin Wicha: Things I Didn’t Throw Out review - the stories told by stacks of stuff

Anna Parker

Marcin Wicha’s mother Joanna never talked about her death. A Jewish counsellor based in an office built on top of the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto, her days were consumed by work and her passion...

Read more...

Jonathan Franzen: Crossroads review - can goodness ever be its own reward?

Markie Robson-Scott

It’s Christmas 1971 in New Prospect, a suburb of Chicago, and pastor Russ Hildebrandt has plans for...

Read more...

Sarah Hall: Burntcoat review - love after the end of the world

India Lewis

Sarah Hall’s Burntcoat is one of those new books with the unsettling quality of describing or...

Read more...

First Person: Andrea Levy's husband recalls her path toward becoming a novelist

Bill Mayblin

The opening sentence of Andrea’s 2010 historical novel The Long Song ...

Read more...

Wole Soyinka: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth review – sprawling satire of modern-day Nigeria

Daniel Baksi

Eight-years passed between the publication of Wole Soyinka’s debut novel, The Interpreters (1965), and his second, Season of Anomy (1973). A lot happened in...

Read more...

Extract: The Breaks by Julietta Singh

theartsdesk

How do we mother at the end of the world? Among the ruins of late capitalism, climate catastrophe, and entrenched white state violence?

Julietta Singh “admit[s]...

Read more...

Ananyo Bhattacharya: The Man from the Future review - the man, the maths, the brain

Jon Turney

Suppose I’m a novelist plotting a panoramic narrative through world-shaping moments of the first half of the 20th century. I’ll need a character who can visit a bunch of key sites. Göttingen in...

Read more...

Ruby Tandoh: Cook As You Are review - truly a trailblazer

CP Hunter

Ever since her appearance on The Great British Bake Off in 2013, Ruby Tandoh has been a breath of fresh air to the food...

Read more...

10 Questions for writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley

Jessica Payn

Anyone familiar with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s bestseller The Body Keeps the Score (2014) will recognise the ghost of his title in Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s My Body Keeps...

Read more...

Barry Adamson: Up Above the City, Down Beneath the Stars review - the post-punk colossus spills his guts in a raw style

Guy Oddy

For those not familiar with the murkier corners of British rock music history, Barry Adamson was a significant...

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... ...
Siglo de Oro, Wigmore Hall review - electronic Lamentations...

Siglo de Oro are a vocal ensemble who specialise in older music – and especially neglected older music – but they have also...

Jenny Saville: The Anatomy of Painting, National Portrait Ga...

When in the 1990s, Jenny Saville’s peers shunned painting in...

Hot Milk review - a mother of a problem

Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk, adapted from Deborah Levy’s 2016 Man Booker shortlistee, has been described as a "psychological drama"....

Glastonbury Festival 2025: Five Somerset summer days of musi...

MONDAY 30th JUNE 2025

“I think you’d better drive,” says Finetime, his face sallow, skull-sockets underscored by...

Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness

I recently heard a BBC Radio 4 presenter use the troubling phrase: "Not everyone agreed on the reality of that." Once the domain of Andre Breton’s...

Hill, Sky Documentaries review - how Damon Hill battled his...

Some world champion racing drivers make it look effortless, but it was never that way for Damon Hill. His path to the championship he won in 1996...

Album: Kesha - .

“I’m, like, pop star when I have to pop star, and then I’m...

The Shrouds review - he wouldn't let it lie

“Dying is an act of eroticism,” suggested one of the many disposable characters in David Cronenberg’s first full-length feature, Shivers...

Album: Claudia Brücken - Night Mirror

German singer Claudia Brücken has had a long and busy career,...

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