book reviews and features
Alyn Shipton: On Jazz - A Personal Journey - digging jazz deeply and musically
Monday, 23 May 2022
“I suppose you’re going to ask all the usual questions...?” When Keith Jarrett was interviewed by Alyn... Read more... |
Joanna Walsh: Girl Online - A User Manual review - how 'beatifoul' it is to be online
Wednesday, 11 May 2022
Scrolling to the top of my Twitter DMs, most of which are from close friends or acquaintances, I notice the message request section flash “1”. It’s a signal I usually ignore, having learnt from... Read more... |
Laura Beatty: Looking for Theophrastus review - adventures in psychobiography
Friday, 06 May 2022
Laura Beatty is a kind of Shirley Valentine figure in contemporary English literature. A decade and a half ago she published an astonishing debut novel entitled Pollard about female... Read more... |
Emily St John Mandel: Sea of Tranquility review - time travel, pandemics and the simulation hypothesis
Tuesday, 26 April 2022
Emily St John Mandel’s wonderful novel of 2020, The Glass Hotel, featured people and places from her... Read more... |
Scholastique Mukasonga: The Barefoot Woman review - remembering Rwanda before 1994
Thursday, 14 April 2022
To read Scholastique Mukasonga’s memoir, The Barefoot Woman, beautifully translated from the French by... Read more... |
Extract: Catching Fire by Daniel Hahn
Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Daniel Hahn began his translation of Jamás el fuego nunca, a novel by experimental Chilean artist Diamela Eltit, in January 2021. Considering the careful, difficult but not impossible “... Read more... |
Alejandro Zambra: Chilean Poet review - from here to paternity
Tuesday, 05 April 2022
Time-honoured advice warns actors never to work with children or animals. Perhaps the literary equivalent should tell novelists not to invent other writers in their books. Especially poets. Unless... Read more... |
Extract: Where My Feet Fall - Going For A Walk in Twenty Stories
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
I began work on Where My Feet Fall a few months into the pandemic of 2020. After lockdown was announced we all became better walkers, and the collection took on greater resonance. ... Read more... |
Marianne Eloise: Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking review - bargaining with the devil
Wednesday, 23 March 2022
No mental health condition has become quite as kitsch as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its tacky shorthands – the hand washing,... Read more... |
María Gainza: Portrait of an Unknown Lady review – queens of the unreal
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
It’s no surprise that the theme of fakes and forgery appeals so much to writers, who traffic in plausible illusions and often believe (in María Gainza’s words) that truth is “just another well-... 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 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
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Music Reissues Weekly: Gather In The Mushrooms
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Müller-Schott, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, Edinburgh - spe...
There was a neat conjunction of commemorations to this concert, the most obvious one being the fact that that 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of...