book reviews and features
Chris Patten: First Confession - A Sort of Memoir review - remembrances of government and power
Sunday, 02 July 2017
It’s 25 years since Chris Patten lost his seat as Conservative MP for Bath. The 1992 election was called by... Read more... |
Brenda Maddox: Reading the Rocks review - revelations of geology
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role of... Read more... |
John Man: Amazons review - the real warrior women of the ancient world
Sunday, 25 June 2017
As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and... Read more... |
David Sedaris: Theft By Finding review - comic literary talent of historic value
Sunday, 18 June 2017
In a voice of distinctive, high-pitched nasal whimsy, comic essayist and memoirist David Sedaris finds humour with the precision of a mosquito after blood. British... Read more... |
Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east... Read more... |
Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander
Sunday, 11 June 2017
University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady... Read more... |
Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia
Sunday, 04 June 2017
2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we... Read more... |
Evgeny Kissin: Memoirs and Reflections review - Russian education, European conviction, Jewish heritage
Sunday, 04 June 2017
"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talk
Monday, 29 May 2017
Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as... Read more... |
Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness review - brilliant fragments of divided India
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Just as in the United States, the quest among Indian authors in English to deliver the single, knock-out... 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...
Faust, Royal Opera review - pure theatre in this solid reviv...
“Satan come to me!” The Devil doesn’t so much appear in David McVicar’s Faust as reveal himself to have always been there. We discover...
Mrs. Warren's Profession, Garrick Theatre review - moth...
How do you make Bernard Shaw sear the stage anew? You can trim the text, as the director Dominic Cooke has, bringing this prolix writer's 1893...
Mongrel review - deeply empathetic filmmaking from Taiwan
There is a dark, spectral quality to this compassionate film about Southeast Asian migrant workers in rural Taiwan. At the centre...
Owen, Manchester Camerata, Takács-Nagy, Stoller Hall, Manche...
Manchester Camerata spent eight years performing and recording a complete edition of Mozart’s piano concertos with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet as soloist...
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...