mon 18/08/2025

book reviews and features

Richard Sennett: Building and Dwelling - Ethics for the City review

mark Kidel

All the great sociologists, in the tradition of Georg Simmel, Max Weber and others, are on a mission. They cannot help wishing to change the world. Science should be value-free, but the social...

Read more...

Agnès Poirier: Left Bank review - Paris in war and peace

Marina Vaizey

There are too many awestruck cultural histories of...

Read more...

Matthew Sweet: Operation Chaos review - paranoia and insanity in the Cold War

Jasper Rees

In 2017 the documentary series The Vietnam War told the story, from soup to nuts, of America’s misadventure in south-east Asia. It now seems the comprehensive...

Read more...

'In order to write my book I had to kill Jane Austen'

Rachel Halliburton

My heroine would not have appeared in a Jane Austen novel. Brilliant, arch and incisive though Austen...

Read more...

Stephen Walsh's Debussy - A Painter in Sound - extract

stephen Walsh

All this time La Mer had been brewing. It was almost a year since Debussy had written to Colonne...

Read more...

Lisa Halliday: Asymmetry review - unconventional and brilliant

Katherine Waters

Lisa Halliday’s striking debut novel consists of three parts. The first follows the blooming relationship between Alice and Ezra (...

Read more...

Rhidian Brook on The Killing of Butterfly Joe

Rhidian Brook

When I was 23 I had a job selling butterflies in glass cases in America. I worked for a guy who, as well as...

Read more...

Ursula K Le Guin - Dreams Must Explain Themselves review - enraging and enlightening

Marina Vaizey

Essay collections are happily mainstream now, from Zadie Smith to Oliver Sacks, with more and more bits and bobs coming from unexpected quarters. These patchwork quilts from remarkable writers can...

Read more...

John Tusa: 'the arts must make a noise' - interview

Liz Thomson

In our era of 24/7 news, downloadable from anywhere in the world at the touch of an app, it's hard to...

Read more...

Mick Herron: London Rules review - hypnotically fascinating, absolutely contemporary

Marina Vaizey

London Rules – explicitly cover your arse – is the fifth in the most remarkable and mesmerising series of ...

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... ...
Gibby Haynes, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - ex-Butthole...

Gibby Haynes is the wild-eyed crazy man who used to front the Butthole Surfers back in the 1980s and 1990s. At the time, there was none weirder or...

BBC Proms: Le Concert Spirituel, Niquet review - super-sized...

There’s a Proms paradox that’s familiar to Early Music fans. Some works are too challenging – too big, too expensive, too uncommercial, too...

Oslo Stories Trilogy: Love review - freed love

Love was the Norwegian climax of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo trilogy, the most lovestruck vision of his city and boldest prophesy of how to...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Residents - American Composer...

George & James was originally released in March 1984. Stars & Hank Forever! emerged in October 1986. The two LPs were...

Frang, Romaniw, Liverman, LSO, Pappano, Edinburgh Internatio...

Right from the bracing brass fanfare that began this Sea Symphony, you know exactly where you were: right in the midst of the deck, with...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Ordinary Decent Criminal / In...

Ordinary Decent Criminal, Summerhall ...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Emmanuel Sonubi / Joz Norris

Emmanuel Sonubi, Pleasance Courtyard ...

Album: Dinosaur Pile-Up - I've Felt Better

The history of popular music is littered with bands who...

Alien: Earth, Disney+ review - was this interstellar journey...

Ridley Scott’s original Alien movie from 1979 was an all-time sci-fi/horror classic, and even an endless stream of sequels and spin-offs...

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