book reviews and features
Barbara Kingsolver: Unsheltered review - too many issues
Sunday, 14 October 2018
“When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.” Mary Treat, the real-life 19th-century botanist who is one of the characters in... Read more... |
Simon Sebag Montefiore: Written in History review - epistolary high points
Sunday, 07 October 2018
Humdinger! This is a totally brilliant idea for an amazing anthology, although the subtitle “Letters that Changed... Read more... |
Neil MacGregor: Living with the Gods review - focuses of belief
Sunday, 23 September 2018
Dip in, dip out, argue, agree and disagree: Living with the Gods is the newest manifestation of a rich multimedia format that keeps on giving, devised by that superb writer and lecturer,... Read more... |
Lavinia Greenlaw: In the City of Love’s Sleep review - curated lives
Sunday, 23 September 2018
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Olga Tokarczuk: Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead review - on vengeful nature
Sunday, 09 September 2018
In a small town on the Polish-Czech border where the mobile signal wanders between countries’ operators and only three inhabitants stick it out through the winter, animals are wreaking a terrible... Read more... |
Michael Hughes: Country review - epic troubles
Sunday, 02 September 2018
Michael Hughes’ second novel, superimposing the post-96 Troubles on the story of The Iliad, rides a wave of Homeric re-tellings, with Pat Barker and Colm Tóibín having recently... Read more... |
Yuval Noah Harari: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century review - a sceptic's optimism?
Sunday, 26 August 2018
The bestseller Sapiens (2011, first published in English in 2014) by the hitherto little-known Israeli academic Yuval Noah Harari has sold enormously well, and justly so: recommended by... Read more... |
P.E.Caquet: The Bell of Treason review - the sacrifice of Czechoslovakia
Sunday, 26 August 2018
It was 80 years ago next month that Neville Chamberlain returned with the good news of peace in our time... Read more... |
h 100 Awards: Publishing and Writing - other stories, other voices
Monday, 20 August 2018
If history repeats itself, better hope that it corrects its mistakes as well. This year’s nominations for the... Read more... |
Roger Scruton: Music as an Art review - how to listen?
Sunday, 19 August 2018
Hegel, Kant, David Hume, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Leibniz are all adduced, referred to, and paraphrased, and that’s just for starters. Add Rameau, Schubert, Beethoven, Benjamin Britten and the... Read more... |
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Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review...
With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn...
Christian Pierre La Marca, Yaman Okur, St Martin-in-The-Fiel...
The French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca confesses that – like so many classical musicians...
That They May Face The Rising Sun review - lyrical adaptatio...
In director Pat Collins’s lyrical adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, with cinematography by Richard Kendrick, the landscape is perhaps the...
Album: Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless
This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC...
Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall re...
Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...
Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a mu...
Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...
Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice
Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...
Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop sh...
The first season of Blue Nights was so close to ...
Sabine Devieilhe, Mathieu Pordoy, Wigmore Hall review - ench...
Sabine Devieilhe, as with many other great sopranos, elicits much fan worship, with no less than three encores at her recent Wigmore Hall recital...
Jonn Elledge: A History of the World in 47 Borders review -...
In A History of the World in 47 Borders, Jonn Elledge takes an ostensibly dry subject – how maps and boundaries have shaped our world –...