Books
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... |
William Boyd: The Romantic review - historical soap opera, anyone?Saturday, 22 October 2022
Writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1814, Francis Jeffrey began his review of Wordsworth’s The Excursion with a provocative denunciation of romanticism: “This will never do,” he complained. “It bears no doubt the stamp of the author’s heart and fancy... Read more... |
Andrew Murray: Is Socialism Possible in Britain? review - what went wrong and why Corbynism failedTuesday, 04 October 2022
The title of Andrew Murray’s new book poses a question that also vexed Friedrich Engels over 130 years ago. The German co-author of The Communist Manifesto despaired of English socialism, "that abomination of abominations", on the grounds... Read more... |
Savala Nolan: Don't Let It Get You Down review - finding voice in the liminalThursday, 29 September 2022
Liminal: a word that conjures thresholds and between states. Caught between three languages – the adjective is a borrowing from the Latin that enters English by way of German – liminal also has three distinct definitions.There is the underused sense... Read more... |
Yiyun Li: The Book of Goose - fame, reality and two teenage French girlsWednesday, 28 September 2022
The Book of Goose, Yiyun Li’s fifth novel, is the gripping story of two teenage French girls and their intense, uneven friendship.On the surface, at least, it’s more accessible and light-hearted than some of her fiction, such as The Vagrants, an... Read more... |
Bronwyn Adcock: Currowan review - a fire foretold, a warning deliveredTuesday, 27 September 2022
In 2019 Australia endured the hottest, driest year since records began and their bushfire season escalated with unprecedented intensity. The fires and pyro-connective storms that swept the country claimed 33 lives (and a further 400 from smoke... Read more... |
