book reviews and features
Brenda Navarro: Empty Houses review - the pains and pressures of motherhood
Thursday, 11 March 2021
The horror novelist Sarah Langan recently compared motherhood to being treated like a game of Operation. “The point of the game is to correct us... Read more... |
Kazuo Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun review - what makes us human?
Tuesday, 09 March 2021
Unsettling, unremitting and psychologically stark, Klara and the Sun has all the hallmarks of a... Read more... |
Katherine Angel: Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again review – the complexities of consent
Monday, 08 March 2021
Katherine Angel borrows the title of her latest book, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, from an essay by Foucault. The phrase parodies the supposed... Read more... |
Frances Larson: Undreamed Shores review - journeys without maps
Tuesday, 02 March 2021
Beatrice Blackwood had lived in a clifftop village between surf and jungle on Bougainville Island, part of the Solomon archipelago in the South Pacific. She hunted, fished and grew crops with... Read more... |
Joseph Andras: Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us review - injustice and tenderness in the Algerian War
Thursday, 25 February 2021
Joseph Andras wastes no time. “Not a proud and forthright rain, no. A stingy rain. Mean. Playing dirty.” This is how his debut novel kicks off, and it’s a fitting start for his retelling of the... Read more... |
Karla Suárez: Havana Year Zero review - maths, phones and mysteries in down-at-heel Cuba
Tuesday, 23 February 2021
Havana, 1993. Far away, the fall of the Soviet empire has suddenly stripped Fidel Castro’s Cuba of subsidy and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Amina Cain on her first novel and her eternal fascination with suggestion
Monday, 22 February 2021
Amina Cain is a writer of near-naked spaces and roomy characters. Her debut collection of short fiction, I... Read more... |
Jackie Kay: Bessie Smith review – vivid writing about the Empress of the Blues
Thursday, 18 February 2021
Blues singer Bessie Smith (1894-... Read more... |
Patricia Lockwood: No One is Talking About This review - first novel goes beyond the internet
Tuesday, 16 February 2021
This is a novel, says Patricia Lockwood in her Twitter feed, about being very inside the... Read more... |
CLR James: Minty Alley review - love and betrayal in the barrack-yard
Monday, 08 February 2021
CLR James came to London from Trinidad in 1932, clutching the manuscript of his first and only novel. He soon found work, writing about cricket for the Manchester Guardian, as well as a... 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...
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 –...