wed 11/06/2025

book reviews and features

'I let it emerge': an interview with Fiona Benson on the cusp of the TS Eliot Prize announcement

Jack Barron

Fiona Benson’s new collection of poems, Ephemeron (Jonathan Cape, 2022), tries to capture those things that are always moving out of grasp. It does this through four sections: the first...

Read more...

Jaan Kross: A Book of Falsehoods review - plague, power and deception in 16th century Tallinn

David Nice

When the first volume of Estonian master Jaan Kross’s peerless historical trilogy first appeared in an English...

Read more...

Best of 2022: Books

theartsdesk

From Kafka’s spry sketches to Derek Owusu’s novel-poem, and Jaan Kross’s Estonian Wolf Hall to Katherine Rundell’s spirited biography of John Donne, our reviewers take the time to share...

Read more...

10 Questions for writer and translator Saskia Vogel

Hannah Hutching

Johanne Lykke Holm’s spellbinding novel Strega recounts one teen’s journey into womanhood....

Read more...

Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song review - a book that contains multitudes

mark Kidel

Some years after Chronicles (2004) a book that broke moulds and delighted with its originality, and as with albums...

Read more...

Kelefa Sanneh: Major Labels review - diary of an omnivorous musicophile

India Lewis

Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres is American critic Kelefa Sanneh’s ambitious survey of musical history. As such, it risks remaining only a...

Read more...

10 Questions for Bruce Lindsay, biographer of Ivor Cutler

Sebastian Scotney

Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room by Bruce Lindsay, is the first full-length...

Read more...

Patrick Duff: The Singer review - agony and ecstasy of a rock'n'roll life

mark Kidel

As our favourite rock stars become elders, there has been a steady flow of autobiographies, some ghosted, some...

Read more...

Patti Smith: A Book of Days review - adding to Insta's debris

Hugh Barnes

On April Fool’s Day, in 1978, the godmother of American punk, Patti Smith, jumped offstage at the Rainbow Theatre in...

Read more...

Derek Owusu: Losing the Plot review - the finest perfume

Harriet Mercer

Derek Owusu’s debut That Reminds Me won the Desmond Elliot Prize in 2020. When asked what it was that she loved most about Owusu’s semi-autobiographical 117-page book, Preti Taneja, chair...

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

Help to give theartsdesk a future!

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

It followed some...

Samuel Arbesman: The Magic of Code review - the spark ages

The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a...

Album: Mary Halvorson - About Ghosts

Although Mary Halvorson leads the sextet Amaryllis on About Ghosts, instrumentally, she does not place her guitar to the fore. The first...

A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bridge Theatre review - Nick...

It’s a sign of the inroads that the term “immersive” has made in theatreland that it now gets jokily namedropped at the...

Saul, Glyndebourne review - playful, visually ravishing desc...

This thrilling production of Saul takes Handel’s dramatisation of the Bible’s first Book of Samuel and paints it in...

theartsdesk at the Dublin International Chamber Music Festiv...

If, like me, chamber music isn’t your most frequent home, there are bound to be revelations of what for many are known masterpieces. Mine in...

Album: Marina - Princess of Power

Marina Diamandis is a proper pop star, brilliantly full-on...

The Gold, Series 2, BBC One review - back on the trail of th...

The first series of The Gold in 2023 was received rapturously, though apparently it only told one half of the story of the 1983 Brink’s-...

Eva Quartet, St Cyprian's review - polyphonic bliss

Eva Quartet are four outstanding Bulgarian voices of polyphonic purity and depth, drawn from the legendary choir Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, who...

Album: Mary Chapin Carpenter - Personal History

In those seemingly long-ago times of loneliness and lockdown, artists around the world invited us into their kitchens and living rooms as they...

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