book reviews and features
Maylis de Kerangal: Painting Time review - safer in simulation
Tuesday, 11 May 2021
"Trompe-l’œil," explains the director of the Institut de Peinture in Brussels, “is the meeting of a painting and a gaze, conceived for a particular point of view, and defined by the effect it is... Read more... |
The Pursuit of Love, BBC One review - extravagantly entertaining
Monday, 10 May 2021
Nancy Mitford's 1945 literary sensation looks poised to be the TV talking point of the season, assuming the first episode of The Pursuit of Love sustains its utterly infectious... Read more... |
Sunjeev Sahota: China Room review - separate, related lives
Monday, 10 May 2021
China Room, Sunjeev Sahota’s third novel, is a familiar, ancestral tale: the... Read more... |
Extract: Blackface by Ayanna Thompson
Thursday, 06 May 2021
Nearly a year has passed since George Floyd was killed by... Read more... |
Kate Lebo: The Book of Difficult Fruit review - a rich, juicy delight
Tuesday, 27 April 2021
Two years ago, I became preoccupied with beetroot. I didn’t want to eat it, particularly, or learn new ways to cook this crimson-purple veg. Instead I hunted down stories of the “beet-rave”, as it... Read more... |
Michael Spitzer: The Musical Human review - charting our age-old relationship with music
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Music and time each dwell inside the other. And the more you attend to musical sounds, the more complex their temporal entanglements become.... Read more... |
Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott: Failures of State review - a devastating exposé, slightly mistimed
Wednesday, 14 April 2021
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
Tuesday, 13 April 2021
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
Wednesday, 07 April 2021
“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
Wednesday, 31 March 2021
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... |
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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...
The Phoenician Scheme review - further adventures in the idi...
It’s not what he says, it’s the way he says it. Few filmmakers have bent the term “auteur” to their own ends more boldly than...
Album: Ammar 808 - Club Tounsi
Ammar 808 is the high octane vehicle for the Tunisian-born producer Sofyann Ben Youssef, now based in Denmark. His first album Maghreb United...
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning review - can this...
Whether it is or isn’t the final Mission: Impossible film, there’s a distinct fin-de-siècle feel about this eighth instalment, and not...
Code of Silence, ITVX review - inventively presented reality...
In the guided tour of Britain’s cathedral cities that is the primetime TV...
The Crucible, Shakespeare's Globe review - stirring acc...
A society ruled by hysteria. Lurid lies that carry more currency than reality. There’s no shortage of reasons that...
Pixies, O2 Academy, Birmingham review - indie veterans pack...
Pixies might just be the ultimate Radio 6 Dad band. They’ve been around (on-and-off) for around 40 years; they’ve got a fine back catalogue of...
Album: Sports Team - Boys These Days
How do you solve a problem like Sports Team? Taking them at face value, they’re a living metaphor for the slow music biz relegation of the working...
Pygmalion, Early Opera Company, Curnyn, Middle Temple Hall r...
With French baroque opera all but banished from the UK’s major...
Album: Stereolab - Instant Holograms on Metal Film
Stereolab always walked a knife edge between deadly serious and dead silly. Their sound was constructed around the sort of reference points –...