book reviews and features
Javier Marías: Between Eternities review - matters of life and death from the Spanish master
Sunday, 19 November 2017
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
Sunday, 19 November 2017
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
Sunday, 12 November 2017
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
Sunday, 12 November 2017
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
Sunday, 12 November 2017
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
Sunday, 05 November 2017
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... |
Oliver Sacks: The River of Consciousness review - a luminous final collection of essays
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Oliver Sacks was the neurologist – and historian of science, and naturalist – whose exceptionally elegant, clear and accessible prose has captivated that almost mythical creature, the general... Read more... |
Susie Boyt: Love & Fame review - as highly strung as a violin factory
Sunday, 29 October 2017
At first glance, Susie Boyt’s sixth novel seems in danger of echoing her... Read more... |
Marcel Proust: Letters to the Lady Upstairs - a very slim volume
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Marcel Proust was a prolific letter-writer. He wrote tens of thousands of them, and at speed, as can be seen from the two facsimiles which are included with the text of Letters to the Lady... Read more... |
Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage review - not quite equal
Sunday, 22 October 2017
La Belle Sauvage, the first instalment of Philip Pullman’s eagerly-awaited new trilogy The Book of Dust, opens in the Trout, a rambling Thames-side pub on the outskirts of Port... 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...
The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idi...
It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than...
Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi
Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United...
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this...
Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...
The Crucible, Shakespeare's Globe review - stirring acc...
A society ruled by hysteria. Lurid lies that carry more currency than reality. There’s no shortage of reasons that...
Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - indie veterans pack...
Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...
Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days
How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...
Pygmalion, Early Opera Company, Curnyn, Middle Temple Hall r...
With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...
Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...