thu 28/03/2024

book reviews and features

Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground

Boyd Tonkin

Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east...

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Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander

Marina Vaizey

University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady...

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Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia

Tom Birchenough

2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we...

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Evgeny Kissin: Memoirs and Reflections review - Russian education, European conviction, Jewish heritage

David Nice

"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to...

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Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talk

Nick Hasted

Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as...

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Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness review - brilliant fragments of divided India

Boyd Tonkin

Just as in the United States, the quest among Indian authors in English to deliver the single, knock-out...

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Billy Bragg: Roots, Radicals and Rockers review - riffing on skiffle, and more besides

Liz Thomson

Wow! An unconventional opening for a book review maybe, but ‘“wow!” nonetheless. Subtitled "How Skiffle Changed the World", this is an...

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Muhsin Al-Ramli: 'During Saddam’s regime at least we knew who the enemy was' - interview

Rachel Halliburton

Saddam Hussein’s name is never mentioned in The President’s Gardens, even though he haunts every page. The one time that the reader encounters him directly, he is referred to simply by...

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Colm Tóibín: House of Names review - bleakly beautiful twilight of the gods

Boyd Tonkin

The news that Colm Tóibín has written a novel about Orestes, Clytemnestra, Electra and the whole accursed...

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Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women review - a bit too abstract and post-modern

Markie Robson-Scott

“I was a lamprey eel in a former life,” says a woman in “Scheherazade”, one of the most intriguing of the seven stories in Men without Women - it was previously published in the New...

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First Person: author-turned-actor Lydia Higman on a play tha...

I first read Anne Gunter’s story about five years ago, when I was in my first year of university at Oxford, little knowing it would over time lead...

The Origin of Evil review - Laure Calamy stars in gripping F...

A young woman (Laure Calamy; Call my Agent!; Full Time; Her Way) is trying to pluck up the courage to call her...

Foam, Finborough Theatre review - fascism and f*cking in a G...

In a too brightly tiled Gentlemen’s public convenience (Nitin Parmar’s beautifully realised set is as much a character as any of the men we meet...

Album: Ride - Interplay

What a time to be alive it is for fans of late Eighties, early Nineties ...

Schubert Piano Sonatas 4, Paul Lewis, Wigmore Hall review -...

“Death doesn’t scare me at all,” said my friend Christopher Hitchens during our last telephone conversation. “After all, it’s the only certainty...

Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William...

“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as...

First person: playwright Paul Grellong on keeping pace with...

I’m writing this in the lobby of the...

Album: Sum 41 - Heaven :x: Hell

Sum 41 honour their 27-year career with Heaven :x: Hell, a 20-track double album, due to be their final, without a single skip. Harking...

3 Body Problem, Netflix review - life, the universe and ever...

From Game of Thrones producers David Benioff and DB Weiss, in cahoots with Alexander Woo, 3 Body Problem is Netflix’s daring...

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