book reviews and features
The Collection: Nina Leger trans. Laura Francis - daring, direct and richly imagined
Sunday, 11 August 2019
Jeanne – employment, age and appearance unknown, motives unknowable – is building a collection of penises. In street after street, she feigns dizziness; on the inevitable approach of a man eager... Read more... |
Rachel DeLoache Williams: My Friend Anna review - a fraudster for the Instagram age?
Tuesday, 06 August 2019
Of all the ventures that super-fraudster Anna Delvey might have chosen as bait for her victims, an exclusive... Read more... |
Martin Hägglund: This Life - Why Mortality Makes Us Free review - profound book to be read slowly
Sunday, 04 August 2019
Swedish-born multi-lingual academic Martin Hägglund lives in New York and teaches philosophy and comparative literature at Yale. His new book, This Life, is a substantial examination of secular... Read more... |
Vic Marks: Original Spin review - trouble in Taunton
Sunday, 21 July 2019
In cricket, timing is everything. Played a fraction early and that silky cover drive finds a batsman out to lunch as... Read more... |
Gina Apostol: Insurrecto review – a treacherous archipelago of stories
Sunday, 14 July 2019
As in other countries born out of 19th-century uprisings against imperial power, the literary roots of the Philippines run deep. Executed by the Spanish in 1896, the novelist, poet and physician... Read more... |
CD - The Lost Words: Spell Songs
Sunday, 07 July 2019
Earlier this year, eight musicians – Karine Polwart, Julie Fowlis, Seckou Keita, Kris Drever... Read more... |
Svetlana Alexievich: Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories review - anything but childish
Sunday, 30 June 2019
Svetlana Alexievich’s Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories is a collection of oral testimonies conducted between 1978-2004 with... Read more... |
Ocean Vuong: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous review – the new avant-garde
Sunday, 23 June 2019
Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is written as a letter to his mother, who cannot read. She cannot read because... Read more... |
Cate Haste: Passionate Spirit - The Life of Alma Mahler review - a racy life pacily narrated
Sunday, 16 June 2019
Charismatic, full of vital elan to the end, inconsistent, fitfully creative, a casually anti-semitic Conservative Catholic married to two of the greatest Jewish artists, Alma Mahler/Gropius/Werfel... Read more... |
Anthony B. Atkinson: Measuring Poverty Around the World review - first, second and third world problems
Sunday, 09 June 2019
Five years ago, when the world was still reeling from 2008 and Britain from the swinging axe of George Osborne, Thomas Piketty’s Capital was an unlikely bestseller. It was a book probably... 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...
Karim Said, Leighton House review - adventures from Byrd to...
William Byrd, Arnold Schoenberg and their respective acolytes go cheek by jowl, crash into one another, soothe, infuriate and shine in their very...
Album: MØ - Plæygirl
Danish singer MØ is a paradox. Initially she appeared to be another Scandi electro-pop princess of the bangers. The monster 2015 hit “Lean On”...
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...