fri 18/04/2025

book reviews and features

Global fiction: the pick of 2018

Boyd Tonkin

If you believe the bulk of the “books of the year” features that drift like stray tinsel across the media at this time of year, Britain’s literary taste-makers only enjoy the flavours of the...

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Matthew Dennison: Eternal Boy review – the banker who stayed forever young

Boyd Tonkin

In Ian McEwan’s 1987 novel The Child in Time, a high-powered publisher and politician named Charles Darke quits his posts, regresses to a child-like state, and frolics in the woods like a...

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Daša Drndić: Belladonna review - a tragicomic journey into Europe's darkness

Boyd Tonkin

Daša Drndić, the Croatian author who died in June aged 71, has posthumously won the second Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for her coruscating novel Belladonna. The award, set up...

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Dramatic Exchanges review - a brilliant slice of theatre history

Marina Vaizey

Dramatic Exchanges is a dazzling array of correspondence, stretching over more than a century, between...

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Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night review - a pairing of loner detectives

Marina Vaizey

The master of the Southern California...

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Michael Caine: Blowing the Bloody Doors Off review - an actor's handbook, annotated by experience

Marina Vaizey

What a charmer! An irresistible combination of diffidence and confidence, Michael Caine is so much more than Alfie...

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Julian Baggini: How the World Thinks review - a whirlwind tour of ideas

Marina Vaizey

The intrepid philosopher Julian Baggini has travelled the world, going to academic conferences, interviewing scores of practicing philosophers from academics to gurus, trying to figure out and pin...

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Barbara Kingsolver: Unsheltered review - too many issues

Markie Robson-Scott

“When men fear the loss of what they know, they will follow any tyrant who promises to restore the old order.” Mary Treat, the real-life 19th-century botanist who is one of the characters in...

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Simon Sebag Montefiore: Written in History review - epistolary high points

Marina Vaizey

Humdinger! This is a totally brilliant idea for an amazing anthology, although the subtitle “Letters that Changed...

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Neil MacGregor: Living with the Gods review - focuses of belief

Marina Vaizey

Dip in, dip out, argue, agree and disagree: Living with the Gods is the newest manifestation of a rich multimedia format that keeps on giving, devised by that superb writer and lecturer,...

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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.

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Donohoe, RPO, Brabbins, Cadogan Hall review - rarely heard B...

The name Arthur Bliss always summoned up for me the image of a fuddy-duddy old buffer writing boring music. But as I’ve discovered his work over...

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The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. Or words to that effect. This quote from Milton’s ...

London Choral Sinfonia, Waldron, Smith Square Hall review -...

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It’s hard to think of anyone even half as persistent as William Forsythe in changing the conversation around ballet. The American...

Manic Street Preachers, Barrowland, Glasgow review - elder s...

As you might expect from a Manic Street Preachers gig, literary influences were never far away. A DH Lawrence quote was prominently displayed on...

DVD/Blu-ray: In a Year of 13 Moons

A longshot of transgender Elvira (Volker Spengler) circled by gay men, assignation turning to assault as dawn mist rises from Frankfurt’s Main...

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