Books
Best of 2022: BooksSaturday, 31 December 2022
From Kafka’s spry sketches to Derek Owusu’s novel-poem, and Jaan Kross’s Estonian Wolf Hall to Katherine Rundell’s spirited biography of John Donne, our reviewers take the time to share their favourite books of 2022. Before his death, Franz... Read more... |
10 Questions for writer and translator Saskia VogelWednesday, 21 December 2022
Johanne Lykke Holm’s spellbinding novel Strega recounts one teen’s journey into womanhood. Leaving her parental home to work with eight other girls in a lavish but mouldering hotel, Rafa grapples with what it means to be a woman in a world... Read more... |
Bob Dylan: The Philosophy of Modern Song review - a book that contains multitudesTuesday, 20 December 2022
Some years after Chronicles (2004) a book that broke moulds and delighted with its originality, and as with albums that often came with changes of attitude and style, Bob Dylan's "philosophy" comes as something of a surprise.This is a man who... Read more... |
Kelefa Sanneh: Major Labels review - diary of an omnivorous musicophileWednesday, 14 December 2022
Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres is American critic Kelefa Sanneh’s ambitious survey of musical history. As such, it risks remaining only a surface-level summary of the seven genres he describes. I was wrong to worry,... Read more... |
10 Questions for Bruce Lindsay, biographer of Ivor CutlerTuesday, 13 December 2022
Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room by Bruce Lindsay, is the first full-length biography of the Glasgow-born poet, author, performer and songwriter. The book will be published on the centenary of Cutler’s birth, 15 January 2023. Cutler... Read more... |
Patrick Duff: The Singer review - agony and ecstasy of a rock'n'roll lifeTuesday, 13 December 2022
As our favourite rock stars become elders, there has been a steady flow of autobiographies, some ghosted, some authentically authored; more or less confessional, revisiting the ups and downs of life-journeys lived beyond the fatal 27th birthday that... Read more... |
Patti Smith: A Book of Days review - adding to Insta's debrisWednesday, 23 November 2022
On April Fool’s Day, in 1978, the godmother of American punk, Patti Smith, jumped offstage at the Rainbow Theatre in London halfway through a version of “The Kids Are Alright” and started dancing in the crowd. Her vertiginous feat was also a leap of... Read more... |
Derek Owusu: Losing the Plot review - the finest perfumeThursday, 10 November 2022
Derek Owusu’s debut That Reminds Me won the Desmond Elliot Prize in 2020. When asked what it was that she loved most about Owusu’s semi-autobiographical 117-page book, Preti Taneja, chair of the judges (and winner of the prize herself in 2018)... Read more... |
Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of the Imagination, Science Museum review - travel to a galaxy not so far awayWednesday, 26 October 2022
Scenes that stay in the mind: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator peeling back the skin on his forearm to reveal the gleaming machinery within; a beady-eyed, new-born Alien bursting from John Hurt’s abdomen; that all-species bar in Star Wars;... Read more... |
Annie Proulx: Fen, Bog & Swamp review - defending the wetlands' bountyWednesday, 26 October 2022
Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog & Swamp sees the Pulitzer-winning novelist join a number of authors decrying the ecological devastation we’re wreaking on the planet. James Rebanks’ English Pastoral argued for radical agricultural rethink. Journalist... Read more... |
Cormac McCarthy: The Passenger review - abstruse, descriptive, digressiveTuesday, 25 October 2022
Cormac McCarthy’s first books in over a decade are coming out this year, a month apart from one another. The Passenger tells the story of deep-sea diver Bobby Western, desperately in love with his perfect, beautiful, wildly intelligent dead sister,... Read more... |
Mariana Enriquez: Our Share of Night review - delving into a violent, erotic worldMonday, 24 October 2022
Tense with horror and the sticky darkness of the Argentinian night, Mariana Enriquez’s writing is rich and occult. Her epic novel, Our Share of Night, vividly translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell, follows on from her short story collections... Read more... |
