book reviews and features
Irenosen Okojie: Nudibranch review - daring and surreal
Sunday, 10 November 2019
Visceral, gaudy, alien, otherworldly to the point of being almost improbably imaginative, the nudibranch serves as an appropriate figure for Nigerian-British writer Irenosen Okojie’s muscularly... Read more... |
Julian Barnes: The Man in the Red Coat review – all that glitters…
Friday, 08 November 2019
“Chauvinism is the worst form of ignorance” is the maxim of Dr Pozzi, the hero of Julian Barnes’s latest book... Read more... |
Michael Connelly: The Night Fire review - unputdownable
Sunday, 03 November 2019
Ballard and Bosch sound like some dystopian upmarket commodity. They are, but deep in with the low life. They are Michael Connolly’s new duo of detectives, one in semi-disgrace, one retired. Throw... Read more... |
Benjamin Markovits: Christmas in Austin review – Essinger family reunion
Sunday, 03 November 2019
Paul Essinger has quit life as a professional tennis player and retired to his native Texas where, over the... Read more... |
Jung Chang: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister review – China's century in three women's lives
Sunday, 27 October 2019
In 1930, a couple of romantically involved Chinese expats in Berlin – both revolutionaries in their own way – went on a farewell date. One of them, Deng Yan-da, was due to return home to continue... Read more... |
Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller review - lyrical and luminous
Sunday, 27 October 2019
Movement, flight, searching, the quest for a destination: as its title might suggest, Sarah Hall’s latest ... Read more... |
Chantal Ackerman: My Mother Laughs review - too umbilically linked?
Sunday, 27 October 2019
My Mother Laughs was first published in Chantal Ackerman’s native French in 2013. This year it has been... Read more... |
John le Carré: Agent Running in the Field review - fake news, Brexit and Cold war echoes
Sunday, 20 October 2019
That John le Carré! It turns out the agent isn’t so much running in the field as playing badminton. The master of the ... Read more... |
Hisham Matar: A Month in Siena review – memories, framed
Sunday, 20 October 2019
A Month in Siena is a sweet, short mediation on art, grief, and life. Ostensibly describing the time and... Read more... |
Thomas J Campanella: Brooklyn - The Once and Future City review - out of Manhattan's shadow
Sunday, 13 October 2019
For visitors to New York, it’s all about Manhattan, its 23 square miles of skyscraper-encrusted granite... 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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Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish for
The art of the conman is persuading their victim to fool themselves, which is the premise that lies at the core of this Australian drama series....
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce...
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by...
Krapp's Last Tape, Barbican review - playing with the l...
In the Stygian darkness of a bare room, a table on a low platform with a light hanging overhead starts to emerge. Then a door briefly...
Formula E: Driver, Prime Video review - inside the world...
The success of Netflix’s Drive to Survive not only provoked a viewer-stampede towards the world’s most expensive sport, but also...
Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are...
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern....
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches exaltation and misery, terror...
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street re...
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based vocalist/lyricist...
The Extraordinary Miss Flower review - odd mashup of music,...
The makers of The Extraordinary Miss Flower are billing it as a “performance film”, a subspecies of the concert-movie...