book reviews and features

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages of love and support

Tom Birchenough Friday, 14 November 2025

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Elizabeth Alker: Everything We Do is Music review - Prokofiev goes pop

Jon Turney Wednesday, 27 August 2025

Composers and musicians explore acoustic space. Generally, they have got by with...

Natalia Ginzburg: The City and the House review - a dying art

Hugh Barnes Saturday, 02 August 2025

Many readers and writers think of epistolary novels as old-fashioned, just as letter writing itself can seem a bit quaint nowadays. The genre became popular during the 18^th and 19^...

Tom Raworth: Cancer review - truthfulness

Jack Barron Friday, 04 July 2025

I recently heard a BBC Radio 4 presenter use the troubling phrase: "Not everyone agreed on the reality of that." Once the domain of Andre Breton’s Manifeste du surréalisme, such...

Ian Leslie: John and Paul - A Love Story in Songs review - help!

John Carvill Wednesday, 25 June 2025

Do we need any more Beatles books? The answer is: that’s the wrong question. What we need is more Beatles books that are worth reading. As the musician and music historian Bob Stanley pointed out...

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

Jon Turney Wednesday, 11 June 2025

The slightly overwrought subtitle, "How Digital Language Created and Connects Our World and Shapes Our Future", gives a good indication how computer enthusiast Sam Arbesman...

Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge

Leila Greening Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Mountainish by Zsuzsanna Gahse is a collection of 515 notes, each contributing to an expansive kaleidoscope of mountain encounters. Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire in...

Patrick McGilligan: Woody Allen - A Travesty of a Mockery of a Sham review - New York stories

John Carvill Wednesday, 09 April 2025

Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Woody Allen weighs in at an eye-popping 800 pages, yet he waits only for...

Howard Amos: Russia Starts Here review - East meets West, via the Pskov region

India Lewis Tuesday, 01 April 2025

Russia Starts Here: Real Lives in the Ruin of Empire, the journalist Howard Amos’ first book, is a prescient and fascinating examination of the borderlands of a bellicose nation. Focusing...

Henry Gee: The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Why Our Species is on the Edge of Extinction review - survival instincts

Jon Turney Saturday, 15 March 2025

Henry Gee’s previous book, A Brief History of Life on Earth, made an interestingly downbeat read for a title that won the UK’s science book prize. He emphasised that a...

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