book reviews and features
William Feaver: The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame 1968-2011 review - mesmerising, exhaustive and obsessively detailedSunday, 13 September 2020
This is a biography like no other, more or less dictated by... Read more... |
Nick Hornby: Just Like You review - funny but inauthentic Brexit novelSunday, 13 September 2020
Nick Hornby’s protagonists are worlds apart. Joseph is a Black 22-year-old with a “portfolio career", which includes shift work at a butcher’s and a leisure centre and the distant dream of... Read more... |
Susanna Clarke: Piranesi review - the mysteries of the HouseSunday, 13 September 2020
The man called Piranesi lives in a House (he likes Capital Letters, and he tells the story). This House consists of an endless labyrinth, like “an infinite series of classical buildings knitted... Read more... |
Matthew Sperling: Viral review - whip-smart satire about the void at the heart of techSunday, 13 September 2020
Strange, that novels like this, which seem to have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, already... Read more... |
Naomi Booth: Exit Management review - unwrapping life's unpleasantnessSunday, 13 September 2020
When you try to get rid of something, it comes back to bite you – so says Naomi Booth in her new novel Exit Management. It’s one of... Read more... |
Gabriel Pogrund & Patrick Maguire: Left Out review - story of Corbynism from 'Glastonbury to catastrophe'Sunday, 06 September 2020
Readers of Left Out may be surprised to find out how much of party politics is conducted over WhatsApp. The Labour Party under Jeremy... Read more... |
Wayne Holloway-Smith: Love Minus Love review – powerfully excavating the tormented poet's psycheSunday, 06 September 2020
Roughly two years since “... Read more... |
Selva Almada: Dead Girls review – the stark proximity of women to violenceSunday, 06 September 2020
Selva Almada’s newly translated work has a stark title in both English and the original Spanish: Dead Girls, or Chicas Muertas. That apparent bluntness belies the hybrid... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: author Katharina VolckmerSunday, 30 August 2020
Katharina Volckmer’s début novel The Appointment follows one woman as she vents her frustrations, confusions and regrets to her doctor during a lengthy appointment in London. Ranging... Read more... |
A. Naji Bakti: Between Beirut and the Moon review - a seriously comical coming of ageSunday, 30 August 2020
What stands between Beirut and the moon? Between Lebanon’s capital and the limitless possibility beyond? It is a question as complex and immense as the nation itself. In the wake of the... Read more... |
Pages
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
latest in today
It’s hard not to review the Israeli occupation of Palestine when writing about The Teacher. The political context of this first feature...
Puccini elevated the operatic tearjerker to tragic status in three masterpieces: La bohème, Madama Butterfly and...
Before Joe Rogan gained fame for his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, he has been, variously, a comic, presenter of goofball...
In an autumn season of three revivals, Opera North begin by inviting James Brining, artistic director of Leeds Playhouse, to oversee his own...
Lady Gaga has made clear this is not her official new artist album. It’s a side project, inspired by Harley Quinn, the nom-de-chaos of the Arkham...
This autumn, the Philharmonia’s “Nordic Soundscapes” season promises music suffused with the epic vistas, and weather, of high latitudes, along...
In 2016, Amy Liptrot made a fine publishing debut with a memoir about her alcoholism, The Outrun. Now she has co-written a...
If audience reaction is anything to go by, Kahchun Wong’s season-opening first concert officially in post as principal conductor of the Hallé was...
The National’s new production of Coriolanus has to be one of the most handsome to appear on the Olivier stage. But it has...