book reviews and features
Chris Patten: First Confession - A Sort of Memoir review - remembrances of government and power
Sunday, 02 July 2017
It’s 25 years since Chris Patten lost his seat as Conservative MP for Bath. The 1992 election was called by... Read more... |
Brenda Maddox: Reading the Rocks review - revelations of geology
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role of... Read more... |
John Man: Amazons review - the real warrior women of the ancient world
Sunday, 25 June 2017
As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and... Read more... |
David Sedaris: Theft By Finding review - comic literary talent of historic value
Sunday, 18 June 2017
In a voice of distinctive, high-pitched nasal whimsy, comic essayist and memoirist David Sedaris finds humour with the precision of a mosquito after blood. British... Read more... |
Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east... Read more... |
Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander
Sunday, 11 June 2017
University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady... Read more... |
Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia
Sunday, 04 June 2017
2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we... Read more... |
Evgeny Kissin: Memoirs and Reflections review - Russian education, European conviction, Jewish heritage
Sunday, 04 June 2017
"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talk
Monday, 29 May 2017
Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as... Read more... |
Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness review - brilliant fragments of divided India
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Just as in the United States, the quest among Indian authors in English to deliver the single, knock-out... Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
A Good House, Royal Court review – provocative, but imperfec...
Most Brits don’t know much about South Africa today, but we do know about house values, so this new comedy by South African playwright and...
Music Reissues Weekly: The Twilights - Twilights Time The Co...
On 26 September 1966, The Twilights set-off from Australia to Britain. The journey, on the liner the Castel Felice, took six weeks. A day after...
Sun Rings, Sacconi Quartet, Festival Voices, Kings Place rev...
What better way to start a season...
Album: Larkin Poe - Bloom
The Lovell sisters Rebecca and Megan can be heard supporting Ringo Starr on his new album of country songs, while at the same time their seventh...
A Complete Unknown review - how does it feel?
Being unknowable has been almost as much of a preoccupation for the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman as writing songs. Previously on film he has played...
Love Life, Opera North review - Lerner and Weill's blas...
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. But in Love Life, Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s...
Vermiglio review - a simple tale, simply but beautifully tol...
Another new release opens with the sounds of people in bed playing over the credits, but these are not Babygirl’s sighs of a...
Album: Kele - The Singing Winds Pt. 3
Of the big UK indie bands of the 00s wave, Bloc Party were always the most austerely art-rockish. Where Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons, Franz Ferdinand...
Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, Dudamel, Barbican review -...
Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela took the Barbican by storm last night with a thrilling account of Mahler’s...