thu 28/03/2024

book reviews and features

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...

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First Person: Marc Burrows on getting to know Sir Terry Pratchett

Marc Burrows

In a very real sense, Terry Pratchett taught me how to write. I first came across his work when I was 12 years old, in the early 90s.

My parents had been given copies of two of the earliest...

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Lorrie Moore: I am Homeless If This is Not My Home review - between this world and the next

India Lewis

Lorrie Moore’s brief but haunting I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is a bizarre, unsettling read. At times it’s a road trip, at others a romance, then supernatural horror, Greek...

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Nick Laird: Up Late review - attention lapses

Alice Brewer

A few pages before the titular poem of Up Late, Nick Laird describes a haircut in a bathroom mirror, and finds a possible art form reflected back: "something like a poem / glances back /...

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Extract: Bacon in Moscow by James Birch

James Birch

In 1988, James Birch – curator, art dealer, and gallery owner – took Francis Bacon to Moscow. It was, as he writes, "an unimaginable intrusion of Western Culture into the heart of the Soviet...

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Fiona Maddocks: Goodbye Russia - Rachmaninoff in Exile review - an affectionate biographical portrait

Bernard Hughes

In 1917, in the face of the Bolshevik revolution closing in on his country estate, Rachmaninoff fled Russia, never to return. He was 44, at his peak as composer, pianist and conductor, but spent...

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Jacqueline Rose: The Plague review - tracing our response to tragedy

Lia Rockey

In The Plague: Living Death in Our Times, Jacqueline Rose makes a surprising pivot from her usual topics – Sylvia Plath, children’s fiction, Zionism, to name a few – to throw a spotlight...

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Caleb Azumah Nelson: Small Worlds review - Ghana and London dance together

India Lewis

Small Worlds, the second novel from Caleb Azumah Nelson, is a delight: a book with a real feeling for sound and dance, and a sense of place from London to Ghana and back again. It’s a...

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Andrey Kurkov: Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv review - a city speaks its multitudes

Hugh Barnes

Rock music helped to subvert the Soviet Union by glamorising youthful rebellion and the West. In the opening scene of Andrey Kurkov’s...

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Helen Czerski: Blue Machine review - how the ocean works

Jon Turney

If you cannot even step into the same river twice, how to take the measure of the ocean? Dipping your toes at the beach is irresistible, but uninformative. Sampling stuff out at sea helps more,...

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First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play tha...

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“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as...

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I’m writing this in the lobby of the...

Album: Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell

Sum 41 honour their 27-year career with Heaven :x: Hell, a 20-track double album, due to be their final, without a single skip. Harking...

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From Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and DB Weiss, in cahoots with Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem is Netflix’s daring...

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