wed 09/07/2025

book reviews and features

Naum Kleiman: Eisenstein on Paper review - a lavish journey into the unconscious

David Nice

"From drawing, via the theatre, to the cinema". Naum Kleiman's  introductory qualification of Sergey Eisenstein's own self-perceived line in his Film Form is one that he follows in a...

Read more...

Jaron Lanier: Dawn of the New Everything review - pioneer of virtual reality tells his story

Sebastian Scotney

Jaron Lanier has quite a story to tell. From a teenage flute-playing goat-herd in New Mexico...

Read more...

Rachel Hewitt: A Revolution of Feeling review - from passions to emotions

Katherine Waters

Utopias have a way of going up in flames. Rachel Hewitt’s new book, A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind, charts the revolutionary fervour and disappointment...

Read more...

Reza Aslan: God - A Human History review - on being 'sapiens', and believing

Marina Vaizey

It is not just the season of holidays and holy days in the monotheistic ...

Read more...

Javier Marías: Between Eternities review - matters of life and death from the Spanish master

Boyd Tonkin

One of these years, Javier Marías will probably win the Nobel Prize in Literature. If and when that...

Read more...

Tina Brown: The Vanity Fair Diaries 1983-1992 review - portrait of an era of glitz and excess

Markie Robson-Scott

Tina Brown’s first Christmas issue of Vanity Fair in 1984 had this to say about “the sulky,...

Read more...

The Best of AA Gill review - posthumous words collected

Katherine Waters

Word wizard. Grammar bully. Sentence shark. AA Gill didn’t play fair by syntax: he pounced on it, surprising it into splendid shapes. And who cared when he wooed readers with anarchy and aplomb?...

Read more...

Jonathan Coe: The Broken Mirror review - potent, crystalline, but rather small

Matthew Wright

Novelist Jonathan Coe has, for some time, been assuming the role of an Evelyn Waugh of the...

Read more...

Richard F Thomas: Why Dylan Matters review - tangled up in clues

Liz Thomson

A year ago, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, his work commended by the committee "...

Read more...

Han Kang: The White Book review - between what is, what was, what might have been

Katherine Waters

A woman gives birth alone two months early in a frost-bound village in the Korean countryside. In Poland, a solitary woman washes down white migraine pills and concludes she must write. The child...

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 £49,000 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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Insomnia, Channel 5 review - a chronicle of deaths foretold

A mixture of legal drama, medical mystery and psychological thriller with creepy supernatural overtones, Insomnia sometimes seems to be...

First Person: country singer Tami Neilson on the superpower...

I was born Tamara Lee Neilson. I had an Uncle Kenny and an Aunt Dolly (who played guitar and banjo, respectively). I mean, did I really have a...

Album: Gwenno - Utopia

Stylistically, Utopia wears multiple faces. Opening cut “London 1757” drifts by like a twig floating upon an unhurried stream. Next, “...

Live Aid at 40: When Rock'n'Roll Took on the World...

“Bob’s not the kind of guy you can say no to,” said Sting, reminiscing about the origins of 1984’s Band Aid charity single “Do They Know It’s...

theartsdesk Q&A: actor Emma Mackey on 'Hot Milk...

Emma Mackey might have had her breakthrough role as a teenage tough cookie in Netflix's hit Series Sex Education (2019-20223), but there...

Blu-ray: A Hard Day's Night

Andrew Sarris, doyen of auteurist film critics, dubbed A Hard Day’s Night “the Citizen Kane of jukebox musicals”. Wild over-...

Sabrina Carpenter, Hyde Park BST review - a sexy, sparkly, s...

Has Sabrina Carpenter officially conquered London? A year after bestie and fellow Disney alumni Taylor Swift declared the “Summer of Sabrina”...

Album: Olafur Arnalds and Talos - A Dawning

Silken ambience is the name of the game on this set from Icelandic composer-producer Olafur Arnalds and dreampop singer Talos, aka Eoin French,...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters