book reviews and features
Salley Vickers: The Gardener review - nature has other ideas
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
A garden is a space defined by its limits. Whatever its contents in terms of style and species, and however manicured or apparently wild its appearance, what distinguishes a garden from its... Read more... |
Extract: My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, New Fiction by Afghan Women
Monday, 21 February 2022
"My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream." Batool Haidari’s words give this bold collection of stories... Read more... |
Thomas Halliday: Otherlands review - diving into the deep past
Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Life on Earth: David Attenborough has it covered, right? Well, globally, maybe, but not historically. He has presented world-spanning series on pretty much every kind of life except bacteria, but... Read more... |
Tessa Hadley: Free Love review - the Sixties, the suburbs and the hippie dream
Tuesday, 25 January 2022
Free Love opens in 1967 and remains within that heady era throughout; no flashbacks, no spanning of generations as in Hadley's wonderful novels The Past or Late in the Day... Read more... |
Best of 2021: Books
Friday, 31 December 2021
“Duck! Here comes another year.” We can, I think, all empathise with the motions and emotions of Ogden Nash’s new year poem, “Good Riddance, But Now What?” Before, however, we bid a troublesome... Read more... |
The Holiness of Sex: Leonard Cohen's Biblical Theology
Wednesday, 15 December 2021
On hearing that I had recently written a book about Leonard Cohen, someone asked me why I thought Bob Dylan... Read more... |
Peter Robison: Flying Blind review – a story of decline and crawl
Tuesday, 30 November 2021
Thomas Pynchon’s saturnine '70s novel Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) begins with “[a] screaming [that] comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.”... Read more... |
Lucie Elven: The Weak Spot review - a cryptic modern fable
Tuesday, 23 November 2021
For most of us, fluttering our eyelids to convince a loved one to cook dinner is harmless meddling. Complimenting our boss on their new coat before asking for a promotion is necessary cunning. For... Read more... |
Sarah Moss: The Fell review - a dark night on the hills
Monday, 22 November 2021
Sarah Moss’s new novel is a slim snapshot of a moment of fear and danger in the year of Covid. That year when judgement and recrimination ruled, and neighbourly feeling was in short supply. It is... Read more... |
Claire Tomalin: The Young H.G. Wells review – days of the comet
Wednesday, 17 November 2021
In late 1894 an unknown 28-year-old science tutor and wannabe writer finished a story in his dismal lodgings just north of Euston station. Divorced, after a brief, calamitous marriage to a cousin... 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 £33,000 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
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
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
There’s nothing more healthy than dissing your own dad, and filmmaker Amalia Ulman says that her old man was “a Gen X deadbeat edgelord skater”...
The Great Escape Festival 2025, Brighton review - a dip into...
As every social space in Brighton once again transforms into a mire of self-important music biz sorts loudly bellowing about “waterfalling on...
theartsdesk Q&A: Zoë Telford on playing a stressed-out p...
If you compiled a list of favourite TV series from the last couple of decades, you’d find that Zoë Telford has appeared in most of them. The...
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...