book reviews and features
Boris Akunin: Black City review - a novel to sharpen the wits
Sunday, 16 December 2018
It is 1914 – a fateful year for assassinations, war and revolution. The fictional Erast Petrovich Fandorin,... Read more... |
Global fiction: the pick of 2018
Sunday, 09 December 2018
If you believe the bulk of the “books of the year” features that drift like stray tinsel across the media at this time of year, Britain’s literary taste-makers only enjoy the flavours of the... Read more... |
Matthew Dennison: Eternal Boy review – the banker who stayed forever young
Sunday, 25 November 2018
In Ian McEwan’s 1987 novel The Child in Time, a high-powered publisher and politician named Charles Darke quits his posts, regresses to a child-like state, and frolics in the woods like a... Read more... |
Daša Drndić: Belladonna review - a tragicomic journey into Europe's darkness
Sunday, 18 November 2018
Daša Drndić, the Croatian author who died in June aged 71, has posthumously won the second Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for her coruscating novel Belladonna. The award, set up... Read more... |
Dramatic Exchanges review - a brilliant slice of theatre history
Sunday, 11 November 2018
Dramatic Exchanges is a dazzling array of correspondence, stretching over more than a century, between... Read more... |
Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night review - a pairing of loner detectives
Sunday, 04 November 2018
The master of the Southern California... Read more... |
Michael Caine: Blowing the Bloody Doors Off review - an actor's handbook, annotated by experience
Sunday, 28 October 2018
What a charmer! An irresistible combination of diffidence and confidence, Michael Caine is so much more than Alfie... Read more... |
Julian Baggini: How the World Thinks review - a whirlwind tour of ideas
Sunday, 21 October 2018
The intrepid philosopher Julian Baggini has travelled the world, going to academic conferences, interviewing scores of practicing philosophers from academics to gurus, trying to figure out and pin... Read more... |
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... |
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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...
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...
Music Reissues Weekly: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe
“Soul Scene,” by Echoes Limited, is built from elements of the James Brown sound. But it’s put together in such a way that the result is...
Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played wi...
It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old...
Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything
London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album ...
Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive
Following on from an impressive set with the Libertines – last year’s No 1 album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade – Peter Doherty...