wed 08/10/2025

book reviews and features

Maylis de Kerangal: Painting Time review - safer in simulation

Charlie Stone

"Trompe-l’œil," explains the director of the Institut de Peinture in Brussels, “is the meeting of a painting and a gaze, conceived for a particular point of view, and defined by the effect it is...

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The Pursuit of Love, BBC One review - extravagantly entertaining

Matt Wolf

Nancy Mitford's 1945 literary sensation looks poised to be the TV talking point of the season, assuming the first episode of The Pursuit of Love sustains its utterly infectious...

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Sunjeev Sahota: China Room review - separate, related lives

India Lewis

China Room, Sunjeev Sahota’s third novel, is a familiar, ancestral tale: the...

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Extract: Blackface by Ayanna Thompson

theartsdesk

Nearly a year has passed since George Floyd was killed by...

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Kate Lebo: The Book of Difficult Fruit review - a rich, juicy delight

Jessica Payn

Two years ago, I became preoccupied with beetroot. I didn’t want to eat it, particularly, or learn new ways to cook this crimson-purple veg. Instead I hunted down stories of the “beet-rave”, as it...

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Michael Spitzer: The Musical Human review - charting our age-old relationship with music

Jon Turney

Music and time each dwell inside the other. And the more you attend to musical sounds, the more complex their temporal entanglements become....

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Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott: Failures of State review - a devastating exposé, slightly mistimed

Sarah Collins

Almost a year ago, in the midst of the first national lockdown, The Sunday Times broke the news that Boris Johnson had failed to attend five consecutive Cobra meetings in the lead up to...

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Polly Barton: Fifty Sounds review - what is lost in translation

India Lewis

Fifty Sounds is translator Polly Barton’s first novel, conceived as part of Fitzcarraldo’s annual...

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Andrea Bajani: If You Kept a Record of Sins review - where blame, grief and discovery meet

Jessica Payn

“I think it happened to you, too, the first time you arrived.” So begins Andrea Bajani’s second novel (...

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Will Page: Tarzan Economics - a 'rockonomist' writes

Sebastian Scotney

The idea behind Tarzan Economics is, in its essence, that “if the vine we are holding onto is withering, we can have confidence to reach out for a new one.” This thesis expounded in Will...

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