wed 03/09/2025

book reviews and features

Brighton Festival 2017: 12 Free Events

Thomas H Green

The Brighton Festival, which takes place every May, is renowned for its plethora of free events. The 2017 Festival is curated by Guest Director Kate Tempest, the poet, writer and performer,...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Min Kym - Gone: A Girl, a Violin, a Life Unstrung

Adam Sweeting

“What’s it like to be a child prodigy?” is a question asked by violinist Min Kym several times...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Christian Madsbjerg - Sensemaking

Peter Forbes

Two pernicious practices dominate Christian Madsbjerg's Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm: algorithm addiction and fake philosophy. The author thinks...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Yrsa Sigurdardóttir - The Legacy

David Nice

Anyone who's followed Yrsa's earlier novels, many of them featuring down-to-earth attorney Thora...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Helen Dunmore - Birdcage Walk

Boyd Tonkin

Birdcage Walk in Bristol really exists. It runs under an arched canopy of branches though a long-disused graveyard in Clifton. At this eerie spot, all that remains of the blitzed church of St...

Read more...

Sunday Book: George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo

Markie Robson-Scott

George Saunders has written a historical novel. Of course, this being Saunders, author of four volumes of...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Yiyun Li - Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life

Liz Thomson

Yiyun Li’s fiction comes garlanded in praise from authors and journals that don’t ladle it out carelessly, so it feels almost churlish to cavil over a memoir written during the course of two years...

Read more...

Sunday Book: Jake Arnott - The Fatal Tree

Matthew Wright

Novelist Jake Arnott has an eye for seedy glamour. The Fatal Tree takes the 1720s underworld - the setting of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, one of the most successful...

Read more...

'My father Sabahattin Ali is being rediscovered'

Filiz Ali

I was 11 years old when my father was killed. A body was found near the border between Turkey and Bulgaria....

Read more...

Sunday Book: Philip Hook - Rogues' Gallery

Florence Hallett

The art dealers of today must be thanking their lucky stars that Philip Hook’s remarkable history of their trade stops where it does. For while it serves as an eminently useful if rather...

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... ...
The Pitchfork Disney, King's Head Theatre review - blaz...

Ever wondered if there was one moment when in-yer-face theatre started? Well, yes there was; there was one play that kicked off that whole 1990s...

Supersonic Festival 2025, Birmingham review - a deep dive in...

The annual Supersonic Festival is a major jewel in ...

The Guest, BBC One review - be careful what you wish for

Why isn’t Eve Myles a superstar? Though well known for her appearances in the likes of Torchwood, Broadchurch and the brilliant...

Born with Teeth, Wyndham's Theatre review - electric sp...

The title refers to a line in Henry VI, Part III: the future Richard III boasts that midwives cried, "Oh Jesus bless us, he is born with...

Album: Saint Etienne - International

International is Saint Etienne’s 13th album. It is their last. According to the promotional material, it was written while recording...

BBC Proms: Barruk, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Kuusisto rev...

Every year, the Royal Albert Hall proves complicit in the magic of the quietest utterances if, as Barenboim put it, you let the audience come to...

Blu-ray: The Graduate

Can a film’s classic status expire, or be rescinded? If it can, I’d say The Graduate is a potential candidate.

...

BBC Proms: Alexander’s Feast, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whela...

Many Londoners would already have experienced the musicality incarnate of Peter Whelan and his Irish Baroque Orchestra. A smaller ensemble rocked...

Album: Brad Mehldau - Ride into the Sun

Brad Mehldau’s three trio concerts in the UK in June showed what it is he does so brilliantly. The group (with bassist Felix Moseholm and drummer...

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