book reviews and features
Tabitha Lasley: Sea State review - a one-woman odyssey through UK oil
Thursday, 04 February 2021
Straight off the bat, Tabitha Lasley’s soon-to-be ex-boss points out the fatal flaw in her life-changing project. Jettisoning her job at a women’s magazine, a long-term boyfriend, a cramped London... Read more... |
Francis Spufford: Light Perpetual review - time regained
Tuesday, 02 February 2021
On 25 November 1944, a German V2 rocket struck the Woolworths store in New Cross at Saturday lunchtime. It killed 168 people. Francis Spufford’s second... Read more... |
Alice Ash: Paradise Block review - a matrix-like collection that reinvents the short story genre
Monday, 01 February 2021
“Burglar alarms jangled through the empty hallways of Paradise Block.” In this ramshackle, lonely tenement, such alarms might be one’s only company. Yet, in this intricate collection of... Read more... |
Eddie S Glaude Jr: Begin Again - James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today review - can America avoid the fire this time?
Tuesday, 26 January 2021
I suspect that the work of James Baldwin is not all that familiar to readers in Britain, perhaps not even to... Read more... |
Olivia Sudjic: Asylum Road review - trauma, barely suppressed
Wednesday, 20 January 2021
In Asylum Road, Olivia Sudjic's third book, everything is purposeful, each loaded gun introduced... Read more... |
Raven Leilani: Luster - portrait of the artist as a black millennial woman
Tuesday, 19 January 2021
One of the finer episodes in Raven Leilani’s startling debut (which contains an embarrassment of fine episodes)... Read more... |
Mark Fisher: Postcapitalist Desire - The Final Lectures review - imagining the alternative
Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures is a collection of transcripts, recording weekly group lectures... Read more... |
Julia Bell: Radical Attention review - a clear rendering of our withering attention spans
Monday, 11 January 2021
You go out for a walk and leave your devices at home; your head feels a little bit clearer. But when you get back and plonk yourself... Read more... |
George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain review – Russian lessons in literature and life
Wednesday, 06 January 2021
Before he published fiction, George Saunders trained as an engineer and wrote technical reports. The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo,... Read more... |
Courttia Newland: A River Called Time review - an ethereality check
Tuesday, 05 January 2021
It is near impossible to imagine what the world would look like today if slavery and colonialism had... 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.
It followed some...
Magic Farm review - numpties from the Nineties
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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Wigmore Hall review - too big a splash...
It was a daring idea to mark Ravel’s 150th birthday year with a single concert packing in all his works for solo piano. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet knows...
Good One review - a life lesson in the wild with her dad and...
Good One is a generation-and-gender gap drama that mostly unfolds during a weekend hiking and camping trip in the Catskills Forest...
E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea review - dull...
It’s hard to say who is going to enjoy E.1027 – Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea. Admirers of the modernist designer-architect will...
Album: Rico Nasty - LETHAL
Rico Nasty’s new album LETHAL signals a shift in direction, but whether it is a bold evolution or a step towards something less distinct...
The Marching Band review - what's the French for '...
In Emmanuel Courcol’s drama The Marching Band (En Fanfare in French, and also released as My Brother's Band), a...
Lucy Farrell, Catherine MacLellan, The Green Note review - s...
Lucy Farrell, one quarter of the brilliant, award-winning Anglo-Scots band Furrow Collective, and a solo artist whose stunning debut album, We...