book reviews and features
William Trevor: Last Stories review - final intimations
Sunday, 20 May 2018
An Irishman who spent more than half a century in London and then Devon, and a prolific writer – nearly 20 novels... Read more... |
Clancy Sigal: The London Lover review - a merry prankster's very long weekend
Sunday, 20 May 2018
To readers of newspapers and magazines, the name Clancy Sigal will be very familiar, probably as a film reviewer. Addicted to... Read more... |
Mario Vargas Llosa: The Neighbourhood review - a surprisingly sketchy telenovela
Sunday, 13 May 2018
Mario Vargas Llosa has written a thriller which opens eye-poppingly. Two wives, one staying over with... Read more... |
Christie Watson: The Language of Kindness review - tender memoir, impassioned indignation
Sunday, 06 May 2018
Anecdotal story-telling wrapped up in hypnotic prose, Christie Watson’s narrative is a gentle, emotive five-part layered package of reflection and indignation. It is part... Read more... |
John Gray: Seven Types of Atheism review - to believe, or not to believe
Sunday, 29 April 2018
To suggest an absence is to imply a presence. Philosophers, novelists, dictators, politicians – as well as almost every “ism” you can think of – take the stage in this absorbing, precisely and... Read more... |
Martin Gayford: Modernists & Mavericks review - people, places and paint
Sunday, 22 April 2018
Back in the early Sixties Lucian Freud was living in Clarendon Crescent, a condemned row of houses in... Read more... |
Barbara Ehrenreich: Natural Causes review - counterintuitive wisdom on the big issues
Sunday, 15 April 2018
“Wham bam, thank you, ma’am” might be one response to this polemical, wry, hilarious and affecting series of counterintuitive essays by one of the most original and unexpected thinkers around.... Read more... |
Amy Sackville: Painter to the King review - portrait of the artist in shadow and light
Sunday, 15 April 2018
Inevitably, the story begins and (almost) ends with Las Meninas. Inspired by the art and life of Diego Velázquez, Amy Sackville tops and tails her third novel with his endlessly enigmatic... Read more... |
Richard Vinen: The Long ’68 review - more impartial than impassioned
Sunday, 08 April 2018
Born into the late 1950s, I was too young to be a 68er, though I remember watching it all on TV: the protests in Red... Read more... |
Irvine Welsh: Dead Men's Trousers review - Renton and Begbie make it safely to middle age
Sunday, 01 April 2018
When it came out in 1993, Trainspotting was probably the most shocking novel since Lady Chatterley's Lover. It’s rumoured to have missed out on a Booker shortlisting... Read more... |
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