sat 28/06/2025

book reviews and features

Pete Paphides: Broken Greek review - top of the pop memoirs

Owen Richards

Think of the phrase “music ...

Read more...

'You’re Jewish. With a name like Neumann, you have to be'

Ariana Neumann

It was during my first week at Tufts University in America, when I was 17, that I was told by a stranger that I was...

Read more...

Imagining Ireland, Barbican review - raising women's voices

Tim Cumming

Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading...

Read more...

Panikos Panayi: Migrant City review – the capital of the world

Boyd Tonkin

Some menus never change. In 1910, the Loyal British Waiters Society came into being, prompted by “xenophobic resentment at the dominance of foreigners in the restaurant trade”. London’s German...

Read more...

Patricia Grace: Potiki review – a searching examination of human nature

Daniel Baksi

With the publication of her first work, Waiariki (1975), Patricia Grace became the author of the first ever collection of short stories by a Māori woman. In the four-and-a-half decades...

Read more...

Eimear McBride: Strange Hotel review - keycards to the heart of a woman in flight

Boyd Tonkin

Hotels in fiction can serve as places of desolation or discovery; as escape hatches, or else punishment blocks. In her third novel, Eimear McBride channels this ambivalence but annexes it to...

Read more...

Jenny Offill: Weather review - the low hum of misgiving

Jessica Payn

Neatly contained, truncated by decisive white space, Jenny Offill’s paragraphs – they have been called “fragments” and even “stanzas” – might be the first thing you notice about Weather,...

Read more...

Sophy Roberts: The Lost Pianos of Siberia review - a distant musical journey

Tom Birchenough

For travellers, “music is a passport, especially in Russia…” Borrowing an adage from the British diplomat Thomas...

Read more...

Francesca Wade: Square Haunting - Bloomsbury retold

Florence Hallett

These days, Bloomsbury rests in a state of elegant somnolence. The ghosts of...

Read more...

Kapka Kassabova: To the Lake review - Macedonia's lacustrine heart

Jessica Payn

To the Lake, Kassabova titles this book, but the journey it unfolds tells of not one ancient lake but two: “twins” Ohrid and Prespa, the Lake of Light and the Vale of Snow; these siblings...

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £49,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story o...

The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the...

Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage...

Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is...

Alfred Brendel 1931-2025 - a personal tribute

Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated over the last year or...

Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs...

Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody...

Album: Lorde - Virgin

Lorde’s trajectory is continually fascinating. From the minimalist, sparse electropop of Pure Heroine to the similar but more grandiose...

Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 2 review - nine premieres, three...

Actually it was a Thursday evening to Saturday experience, but what riches in seven concerts. The only Britten I heard was one of the S...

F1: The Movie review - Brad Pitt rolls back the years as mav...

As producer Jerry Bruckheimer cautioned a preview audience, “Remember, this is not a documentary. It’s a movie.” Bruckheimer teamed up with...

Bleak landscapes and banjos: composer Bernard Hughes discus...

Composer Bernard Hughes first met director Richard Bracewell when working on the film Bill, a 2015 Horrible Histories take on...

Album: Bruce Springsteen - Tracks II: The Lost Albums

It’s somewhat surprising to read that The Boss wasn’t happy with Born in the USA. After all, it was –...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters