book reviews and features
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Friday, 31 January 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com. It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and... Read more... |
Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, Confessions, is a puzzle, a game of family secrets... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Books
Tuesday, 31 December 2024
Billie Holiday sings again, Olivia Laing tends to her garden, and Biran Klaas takes a chance: our reviewers discuss their favourite... Read more... |
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen
Friday, 13 December 2024
What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question and may be impossible to satisfactorily answer,... Read more... |
Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative journey through northern Europe in the 1980s. However,... Read more... |
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown
Thursday, 21 November 2024
How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness, the endless snow and ice, the polar bears? Did it... Read more... |
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Jon Fosse talks a lot about thinking. He also thinks – hard – about talking. His prolific and award-winning career in poetry, prose, and drama, might be said, in fact, to unfold a digressive... Read more... |
Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: More and More and More review - fuel for thought
Thursday, 07 November 2024
If you are bothered about climate change – and who isn’t? – you’ll soon come... Read more... |
Alan Hollinghurst: Our Evenings review - a gift that keeps on giving
Monday, 04 November 2024
In Alan Hollinghurst’s first novel, The Swimming Pool Library (1988), set during the summer of 1983, the young gay narrator, William Beckwith, lives in Holland Park. That same year and... Read more... |
Jonathan Coe: The Proof of My Innocence review - a whodunnit with a difference
Tuesday, 29 October 2024
Anyone who has been on a British train in the last ten years will have been irritated to distraction by the inane and ubiquitous “See it, say it, sorted” announcement that punctuates every journey... Read more... |
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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...
Brian and Maggie, Channel 4 review - Thatcherism's date...
The thesis underlying this two-part drama is that Brian Walden’s 1989 TV interview with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher marked the end of the...
Formal Sppeedwear, The Windmill review - Stoke-on-Trent trio...
As Stoke-on-Trent’s Formal Sppeedwear immerse themselves in what turns out to be their penultimate song, they become lost in the music. What they...
Northern Ballet: Three Short Ballets, Linbury Theatre review...
Leeds-based Northern Ballet has built a reputation as a source of fine dancers who are also impressive actors. Federico Bonelli, the...
By the Stream review - enigmatic Korean drama
“I lead a peaceful, idle life, running a bookstore in Gangneung. Honestly, no customers.” Chu Si-eon (Kwon Hae-hyo) is genial and self-deprecating...
Album: Cymande - Renascence
When you’ve achieved the truly sublime, trying to recapture it can be bittersweet. Cymande, for the mere three years they existed in the early...
Russell Howard Live at the Palladium review - feelgood philo...
This special, available for a limited time only, acts as a sort of appetiser for the next leg of a mega tour that started in 2023, and still has...
Album: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Purple Bird
Somewhat astoundingly, The Purple Bird is Will Oldham’s album number 21 using his Bonnie “Prince” Billy alias. A fine set of alt...
Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear
Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, ...
theartsdesk on Vinyl 88: Violent Femmes, Ringo Starr, ARXX,...
VINYL OF THE MONTH
Buñuel Mansuetude (Skin Graft/Overdrive)
...