book reviews and features
Moyra Davey: Index Cards review – fragments of the artist
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Moyra Davey’s biographical note, included in Fitzcarraldo Editions’ copy of Index Cards, describes “a New... Read more... |
Keiichiro Hirano: A Man review - the best kind of thriller
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Keiichiro Hirano’s A Man has all the trappings of a gripping detective story: a bereaved wife, a... Read more... |
John Grisham: Camino Winds review - morality tale with a light touch
Sunday, 24 May 2020
John Grisham is a brand, in the sense that the reader relies on some sense of what the product is going to be. He is well up in the millions of sales, along with other writers under the “... Read more... |
Maria Reva: Good Citizens Need Not Fear review - tales of gloomy humour and absurdist charm
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
Maria Reva’s humorously gloomy debut collection, centring on the inhabitants of a block of stuffy apartments in Soviet (and... Read more... |
Khaled Nurul Hakim: The Book of Naseeb review – a bold debut
Sunday, 17 May 2020
A small-time heroin dealer harbours idealistic dreams of building a hospital “to help da limmless in Peshawar and Kabul”. This is the premise of The Book of Naseeb, the debut novel from... Read more... |
'What Grandma said (Grandma’s Corona)': sonnets by Claudia Daventry
Sunday, 17 May 2020
A year plagued by Coronavirus is surely a time to dust off a seldom-aired... Read more... |
Caroline Maclean: Circles and Squares review - adventurous art, progressive living and a good gossip
Monday, 11 May 2020
There was a moment in the 1930s when it seemed that contemporary art, as practised in Britain, might join the... Read more... |
Rutger Bregman: Humankind, a Hopeful History review – nice guys finish first
Sunday, 10 May 2020
In retrospect, we will surely see that British battles over the Covid-19 lockdown harboured within them a bitter but half-hidden war of ideas. On one side, the behavioural scientists who first... Read more... |
Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli - III of III
Friday, 08 May 2020
At the end of an exhausting day's driving punctuated by disappointments and false leads, the narrator finds herself back at the Israeli town of Nirim where she spends the night. Slipping off... Read more... |
Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli - II of III
Wednesday, 06 May 2020
The second half of Minor Detail is narrated in the first person by a young Palestinian woman who reads an article about the rape and murder of the captured girl. When she finds 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...
House of Games, Hampstead Theatre review - adapted Mamet scr...
There is so much that is right about Jonathan Kent’s new production of House of Games – the casting, the staging, the...
Album: MØ - Plæygirl
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Stile Antico, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious birthday cele...
There was a wonderful festal spirit at the Wigmore Hall last night, as the vocal ensemble Stile Antico ran through a Greatest Hits selection in...
PUP, SWG3, Glasgow review - controlled chaos from Canadian p...
According to PUP lead singer Stefan Babcock, the Toronto foursome practiced together a grand total of twice before embarking on their current UK...
Zoe Lyons, Touring - midlife, without the crisis
Zoe Lyons knows her audience; as a few shoutouts confirmed, many of them are long-time fans, and have had lives with similar highs and...
The Last Musician of Auschwitz review - a haunting testament...
“It is so disgraceful, what happened there,” says Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, in a comment that is the understatement of the century. She is referring...
Giulio Cesare, The English Concert, Bicket, Barbican review...
Is Giulio Cesare in Egitto, to give the full title, Handel’s best and shapeliest opera? Glyndebourne’s revival of the legendary David...
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - premiere...
Huw Watkins’ Concerto for Orchestra, the fourth new work of his to be commissioned and premiered by the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, is...
DVD/Blu-ray: Slade in Flame
Over the years Slade in Flame has been hailed as one of the greatest rock movies (albeit rarely seen or screened), up...