thu 24/07/2025

book reviews and features

Best of 2019: Books

theartsdesk

In a year that saw some notable highs (Ilya Kaminsky's Deaf Republic) and some stonking lows (...

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Michael Hunter: The Decline of Magic review - when mockery killed witches

Boyd Tonkin

During a single day of bloated idleness last week, I managed to watch three televised ghost stories, adapted from the works of Charles Dickens and a brace of Jameses: MR and Henry. Christmas,...

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Nalini Singh: A Madness of Sunshine review – a lacklustre thriller

Lauren Brown

Nalini Singh's debut thriller thrusts us into Golden Cove, a small coastal town in New Zealand at "the...

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Eva Meijer: Animal Languages review - do you talk crow?

Marina Vaizey

Animal intelligence has come to the fore as an essential and fashionable subject for study. Dolphins, elephants, bees, prairie dogs, gannets, whales, baboons, wolves, parrots, bats – not mention...

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Sema Kaygusuz: Every Fire You Tend review – an education in grief

Daniel Baksi

In March 1937, the government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk instigated what it called a “disciplinary campaign” against the Zaza-speaking Alevi Kurds in the Dersim region of eastern...

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Elizabeth Strout: Olive, Again review - compassion, honesty and community

Jessica Payn

Elizabeth Strout is fond of plain titles. Much as her stories are interested in subtlety – the quiet complications and contradictions of ordinary life – her books advertise themselves by means of...

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Ho Sok Fong: Lake Like A Mirror review - an intoxicating collection

Sarah Collins

“Truth was further from safety than two islands at opposite ends of the earth,” proclaims the narrator of ‘Lake Like A Mirror’, the titular short...

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John Grisham: The Guardians review - nail-bitingly good

Marina Vaizey

Some two million Americans are currently in prison in America. A disproportionate number are black and nearly 200,...

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Robert Service: Kremlin Winter review – behind Putin's masks

James Dowsett

When U.S. president George W. Bush looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin he famously “saw his soul”. In his latest meditation on modern...

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Ted Gioia: Music: A Subversive History review – an informative, giddying ride

Sebastian Scotney

People who derive comfort from Classic FM’s strapline that European classical music is “The World's Greatest Music" are going to have a major problem with this book. American music historian...

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