book reviews and features
Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage review - not quite equal![]()
La Belle Sauvage, the first instalment of Philip Pullman’s eagerly-awaited new trilogy The Book of Dust, opens in the Trout, a rambling Thames-side pub on the outskirts of Port... Read more... |
Peggy Seeger: First Time Ever - A Memoir, review - a remarkable life![]()
Seeger. A name to strike sparks with almost anyone, whether or not they have an interest in folk music... Read more... |
Niall Ferguson: The Square and the Tower review - of groups and power![]()
The controversial historian Niall Ferguson is the author of some dozen books, including substantial... Read more... |
Alan Hollinghurst: The Sparsholt Affair - pictures at an exhibition, with telling gaps![]()
Television has paid its dues to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act - rather feebly, with some rotten acting, in Man in an Orange Shirt; brilliantly, with mostly superb... Read more... |
Henning Mankell: After the Fire review - of death and redemption![]()
The dour, reclusive disgraced doctor Fredrik Welin has appeared once before in Henning Mankell’s work, in The... Read more... |
h.Club 100 Awards 2017: The Winners![]()
At a festive ceremony on Tuesday night at The Hospital Club in central London, the winners... Read more... |
Orhan Pamuk: Istanbul, Memories and the City review – a masterpiece upgraded![]()
Along with Balzac’s Paris and Dickens’s London, Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul now ranks as one of the most illustrious author-trademarked cities in literary history. Yet, as... Read more... |
Roddy Doyle: Smile review - return of the repressed![]()
Although he made his name with the generally upbeat grooves and licks of his Barrytown Trilogy, Roddy Doyle has often played Irish family and social life as a blues full of sorrow and regret. In... Read more... |
Claire Tomalin: A Life of My Own review - the biographer on herself![]()
The title says it all, or at least quite a lot. Luminously intelligent, an exceptionally hard worker, bilingual in French, a gifted... Read more... |
Anne Applebaum: Red Famine review - hope around a heart of darkness![]()
Hands both sensitive and surgical are needed to guide a reader into the heart of the 20th century’s second biggest genocide and out again. Anne Applebaum is the right person for a... Read more... |
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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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