book reviews and features
Amalie Smith: Thread Ripper review - the tangled web we weave![]()
Sitting in the park on a hot summer’s day, life began to imitate art. I had been soaking up the sun’s now overpowering rays for over an hour and was beginning to feel its radiating effects. ... Read more... |
Phoebe Power: Book of Days review - the clack of walking poles, the clink of scallop shell![]()
The word “shrine” somersaults me back to the path of the Camino de Santiago. I have lost count of the faces that smiled up from photos positioned in the hollow of trees, some with little plastic... Read more... |
Jessie Burton: The House of Fortune review - a muted, sensitive sequel![]()
A sequel is always a hard thing to write, especially if the book that precedes it is a bestseller, adapted for television and read by more than a million people. Yet Jessie Burton’s The House... Read more... |
Katya Adaui: Here Be Icebergs review - odd relations![]()
The title of Katya Adaui’s debut collection in English is taken from one of the 12 short stories it contains: an... Read more... |
Stanislav Aseyev: In Isolation - Dispatches from Occupied Donbas review - journeys through space and time in Ukraine![]()
Stanislav Aseyev is a Ukrainian writer who came in from the cold. Until the spring of 2014, he was an aspiring... Read more... |
Mieko Kawakami: All the Lovers in the Night review - the raw relatability of loneliness![]()
Mieko Kawakami is the champion of the loner. Since achieving immense success in the UK with her translated works, she has become an indie fiction icon for her modern, visceral depictions of... Read more... |
Philip Ball: The Book of Minds review - thinking about the box![]()
Years ago, one of the leading mathematicians in the country tried to explain to me what his real work was like. When he was on the case, he said, he could be doing a range of other things – having... Read more... |
10 Questions for art historian and fiction writer Chloë Ashby![]()
“Is she at a pivotal point in her life but unable to pivot…?” Eve, the young heroine of Chloë Ashby’s dazzling debut... Read more... |
Kim Hye-jin: Concerning My Daughter review - room for complication![]()
In this best-selling Korean novella, recently translated into English by Jamie Chang, Kim Hye-jin offers us the perspective of a Korean... Read more... |
Alyn Shipton: On Jazz - A Personal Journey - digging jazz deeply and musically![]()
“I suppose you’re going to ask all the usual questions...?” When Keith Jarrett was interviewed by Alyn... Read more... |
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"I feel I owe you an explanation." That much James Thierrée concedes partway through his sprawling, freewheeling, dream-like, hallucinatory ...

The year 2024 will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the phenomenal Gabriel Fauré. For Tristan Raës and me, who have been...

Randy Feltface, Assembly George Square ★★...