book reviews and features
Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear![]()
Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, Confessions, is a puzzle, a game of family secrets... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Books![]()
Billie Holiday sings again, Olivia Laing tends to her garden, and Biran Klaas takes a chance: our reviewers discuss their favourite... Read more... |
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen![]()
What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question and may be impossible to satisfactorily answer,... Read more... |
Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks![]()
The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative journey through northern Europe in the 1980s. However,... Read more... |
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown![]()
How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness, the endless snow and ice, the polar bears? Did it... Read more... |
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts![]()
Jon Fosse talks a lot about thinking. He also thinks – hard – about talking. His prolific and award-winning career in poetry, prose, and drama, might be said, in fact, to unfold a digressive... Read more... |
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: More and More and More review - fuel for thought![]()
If you are bothered about climate change – and who isn’t? – you’ll soon come... Read more... |
Alan Hollinghurst: Our Evenings review - a gift that keeps on giving![]()
In Alan Hollinghurst’s first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (1988), set during the summer of 1983, the young gay narrator, William Beckwith, lives in Holland Park. That same year and... Read more... |
Jonathan Coe: The Proof of My Innocence review - a whodunnit with a difference![]()
Anyone who has been on a British train in the last ten years will have been irritated to distraction by the inane and ubiquitous “See it, say it, sorted” announcement that punctuates every journey... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Anna Bogutskaya on her new book about the past decade of horror cinema![]()
You may have heard the phrase “elevated horror” being used to describe horror films that lean more toward arthouse cinema, favouring tension and psychological turmoil over jump-... Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
The future of Arts Journalism
You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!
We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d
And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.
latest in today

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

There was a time when the only daytime TV (ex-weekends and ex-Wimbledon fortnight) comprised the annual party conferences and the...

Gary Oldman has always lived life to the fullest, on screen and off. Maybe that's why he is often at his best in his pitch-perfect portraits of...
Who doesn’t love the quirky, passionate and humanitarian genius of Leoš Janáček? All of it, these days. Since Charles...

In Dublin, a city that has changed more than most in the last 30 years, a young woman, with an English accent that is expensive to...

There’s plenty of noise out there about 24-year-old Kentish musician Victoria Walker, AKA PinkPantheress. Since being acclaimed BBC Sound of 2022...

Following on from the first series of Malpractice in 2023, this second season again probes into issues of medical malfeasance and...

After kicking off with the psychedelia-tinged “Sgt. Major,” they keep coming. A string of songs as Sixties-influenced as they are edgy and...

My new album, Fantasies, recorded with pianist Richard Fu, is the culmination of my years-long fascination with the wonderful genre of...

Eureka’s second volume of Laurel and Hardy shorts catches the pair in 1928 on the cusp of their successful...