book reviews and features
Emma Glass: Rest and Be Thankful review – fiction from the paediatric front-line
Sunday, 15 March 2020
How do you prevent a sick baby in a high-care cubicle, his frail chest swamped in secretions, from drowning in his own “loose mucus”? Remove a suction catheter from its wrapping and insert it... Read more... |
Mieko Kawakami: Breasts and Eggs review - a book of two halves
Sunday, 15 March 2020
Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs is a true novel of two halves and is (excuse the pun) a bit of a curate’s egg. Kawakami’s bio at the beginning of the text explains that the novel was... Read more... |
Hilary Fannin: The Weight of Love review – unravelling knotty lives
Sunday, 15 March 2020
The relationship between Joe, Robin and Ruth is far from your average love triangle. On the face of it, Robin loves Ruth, but after introducing her to his charismatic friend Joe – an artist and... Read more... |
Rebecca Solnit: Recollections of My Non-Existence review - feminism, hope and the great American West
Sunday, 08 March 2020
Rebecca Solnit’s autobiography, Recollections of My Non-Existence, is just as you might expect it to be – tangential, changeable, deeply feminist, and imbued with a sense of hope that... Read more... |
Joanna Trollope: Mum & Dad review - redemption in Spain
Sunday, 08 March 2020
In common with her literary forebear, Joanna Trollope’s light hand refrains from the introverted angst so common in contemporary novels. Her immensely readable, witty renderings of English... Read more... |
Christos Tsiolkas: Damascus review - the author of The Slap goes biblical
Sunday, 01 March 2020
To Christos Tsiolkas fans expecting something in the vein of his riveting bestsellers The Slap and Barracuda, the sixth novel by this Australian writer may come as a shock. We're... Read more... |
Michael Nath: The Treatment review - 'deeds, and language, such as men do use'
Sunday, 01 March 2020
Great writing about – or set in – London has one thing in common: voice. It’s tuned into the city’s multiple... Read more... |
Pete Paphides: Broken Greek review - top of the pop memoirs
Sunday, 01 March 2020
Think of the phrase “music ... Read more... |
'You’re Jewish. With a name like Neumann, you have to be'
Monday, 24 February 2020
It was during my first week at Tufts University in America, when I was 17, that I was told by a stranger that I was... Read more... |
Imagining Ireland, Barbican review - raising women's voices
Monday, 24 February 2020
Recent politics surround the EU and nationhood, fantasies of Irish Sea bridges and trading... 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.
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It's both brave and bracing to welcome new voices to the West End, but sometimes one wonders if such exposure necessarily works to the benefit of...
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