fri 01/08/2025

book reviews and features

Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott: Failures of State review - a devastating exposé, slightly mistimed

Sarah Collins

Almost a year ago, in the midst of the first national lockdown, The Sunday Times broke the news that Boris Johnson had failed to attend five consecutive Cobra meetings in the lead up to...

Read more...

Polly Barton: Fifty Sounds review - what is lost in translation

India Lewis

Fifty Sounds is translator Polly Barton’s first novel, conceived as part of Fitzcarraldo’s annual...

Read more...

Andrea Bajani: If You Kept a Record of Sins review - where blame, grief and discovery meet

Jessica Payn

“I think it happened to you, too, the first time you arrived.” So begins Andrea Bajani’s second novel (...

Read more...

Will Page: Tarzan Economics - a 'rockonomist' writes

Sebastian Scotney

The idea behind Tarzan Economics is, in its essence, that “if the vine we are holding onto is withering, we can have confidence to reach out for a new one.” This thesis expounded in Will...

Read more...

Extract: TV by Susan Bordo

theartsdesk

"Television and I grew up together." As a baby boomer born in 1947, Susan Bordo is roughly the same age as our beloved gogglebox, which began life as a broad box with a ten-inch screen, chunky and...

Read more...

theartsdesk Q&A: Author Sam Mills on the phenomenon of the 'chauvo-feminist'

CP Hunter

Sam Mills’s writing includes the wondrously weird novel The Quiddity of Will Self, the semi-memoir Fragments of My Father, and Chauvo-Feminism (The Indigo Press), which...

Read more...

Charles Saumarez Smith: The Art Museum In Modern Times review – the story of modern architecture

Daniel Baksi

“This book is a journey of historical discovery, set out sequentially in order to convey a sense of what has changed over time.” Add to this sentence, the title of the work from which it is taken...

Read more...

Craig Taylor: New Yorkers - A City and Its People in Our Time review

Liz Thomson

For the last couple of years, until we were so rudely interrupted, I’d been spending chunks of the year in New York, a city I’ve come to know...

Read more...

Prix Pictet: Confinement review - a year in photographs

Florence Hallett

Sustainability and the environment are watchwords for the Prix Pictet, the international...

Read more...

Alan Warner: Kitchenly 434 review – dreams and delusions in the backwaters of fame

Boyd Tonkin

“They think it’s all drugs and sex up here, Mrs H.” “Bless me.” The reality, at Kitchenly Mill Race, runs more to a nice pot of Tetley’s and a plate of Gypsy Creams. But “people are funny around...

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... ...
The Naked Gun review - farce, slapstick and crass stupidity

The original Naked Gun series (spun off from the Police Squad! TV show) brought reliable belly-laughs to the Eighties and...

Album: Reneé Rapp - Bite Me

The stage musical update of Mean Girls, and the film adaptation, pushed Reneé Rapp into the public eye. She played queen bitch Regina...

The Narrow Road to the Deep North, BBC One review - love, de...

Readers of Richard Flanagan’s Booker-winning novel will be familiar with its themes of war, extreme suffering, ageing, memory, fidelity and...

Late Shift review - life and death in an understaffed Swiss...

Floria (the superb Leonie Benesch: The Crown; The Teachers’ Lounge; September 5) is a nurse, working the severely understaffed...

BBC Proms: Kholodenko, BBCNOW, Otaka review - exhilarating L...

According to the programme, Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is heard somewhere around the world every other week. In which case I’ve...

The Daughter of Time, Charing Cross Theatre review - unfocus...

Following confirmation that he was the owner of the bones found in a Leicester car park in 2012, Richard III has never been a hotter,...

theartsdesk Q&A: actor Lars Eidinger on 'Dying...

To get Lars Eidinger "right", one must take him cloven hoof and all. He's intense, unconventional, and driven – but by what, exactly?...

Album: Cian Ducrot - Little Dreaming

Cian Ducrot cut his teeth on a blend of intimate singer-songwriter balladry and lowkey alt-pop, most of his debut album Victory ...

Evita, London Palladium review - even more thrilling the sec...

Would Jamie Lloyd's mind-bending revival of Evita win through twice in four weeks, I wondered to myself, paraphrasing a Tim Rice lyric...

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