sun 20/07/2025

book reviews and features

Enter theartsdesk / h Club Young Influencer of the Year award

theartsdesk

Are you a young blogger, vlogger or writer in the field of the arts, books and culture? If so, we've a competition for you to enter.

The Hospital Club’s annual h Club100...

Read more...

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott: Swan Song review - Capote redux

Marina Vaizey

Here you will find Babe Paley, Slim Keith, CZ Guest, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill, Marella Agnelli, the stylish leaders of society, gorgeous, gilded, well-married ladies: the men they were with...

Read more...

Robert Gordon: Memphis Rent Party review - a fast-moving Mississippi anthology

Sebastian Scotney

“There’s a rhythm in the air around Memphis, there always has been,” Carl Perkins once said. "I don't know what it is, but it's magic." The city on the Mississippi lives up to its...

Read more...

Meg Wolitzer: The Female Persuasion review - the many faces of feminism

Markie Robson-Scott

Meg Wolitzer’s 10th novel has been hailed as a breakthrough, a feminist blockbuster, an embodiment of the zeitgeist. (Nicole Kidman has bought the film rights, which goes to show.) But...

Read more...

Frank Gardner: Ultimatum review - topical terrorism

Marina Vaizey

The journalist Frank Gardner has turned to fiction to illuminate with imagination the world that he knows inside out from years of reporting. His biographical trajectory, from scholar of the...

Read more...

Sophie Mackintosh: The Water Cure review - on the discipline of survival

Katherine Waters

A body can be pushed to the brink, to the point where thoughts flatten to a line of light, and come back from death, but the heart is complex and the damage it wreaks barely controllable. For...

Read more...

The World Of Moominvalley, Brighton Festival review - a fascinating insight into the world of Tove Jansson

Katie Colombus

It was no matter that journalist Daniel Hahn dropped out ill at the 11th hour of this "audience with" event. Author Philip Ardagh's deep knowledge and unflappable demeanour comfortably carried the...

Read more...

William Trevor: Last Stories review - final intimations

Marina Vaizey

An Irishman who spent more than half a century in London and then Devon, and a prolific writer – nearly 20 novels...

Read more...

Clancy Sigal: The London Lover review - a merry prankster's very long weekend

Liz Thomson

To readers of newspapers and magazines, the name Clancy Sigal will be very familiar, probably as a film reviewer. Addicted to...

Read more...

Mario Vargas Llosa: The Neighbourhood review - a surprisingly sketchy telenovela

Jasper Rees

Mario Vargas Llosa has written a thriller which opens eye-poppingly. Two wives, one staying over with...

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... ...
The Estate, National Theatre review – hugely entertaining, b...

The first rule for brown people, says the main character – played by BAFTA-winner Adeel Akhtar – in this highly entertaining dramedy, is not to...

Music Reissues Weekly: Mike Taylor - Pendulum, Trio

Wheels of Fire was Cream’s third album. Issued in the US in June 1968 and in the UK two months later, it was a double LP. One record was...

Bookish, U&Alibi review - sleuthing and skulduggery in a...

As a sometime writer of Poirot, Sherlock and Christmas ghost stories,...

The Ballad of Suzanne Césaire review - a mysterious silence

A glamorous black woman sits in a Forties bar under a Vichy cop’s gaze, cigarette tilted at an angle, till two male companions join her in...

Youssou N'Dour and Super Étoile de Dakar, Roundhouse re...

There is a freshness about a show by Youssou N’Dour that never seems to lose its glow. He still has one of the great voices of Africa, a versatile...

BBC Proms: First Night, Batiashvili, BBCSO, Oramo review - g...

The auditorium and arena were packed – and the stage even more so, bursting at the seams with players and singers: the perfect set-up for a First...

Album: Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars - Dreams

What a great album – and what a great story to lift the heart in these fetid times. A story that crosses oceans and decades and brings together a...

Harvest review - blood, barley and adaptation

Lovers of a particular novel, when it’s adapted as a movie, often want book and movie to fit together as a hand in a glove. You want it to be like...

Poor Clare, Orange Tree Theatre review - saints cajole us si...

What am I, a philosophical if not political Marxist whose hero is Antonio Gramsci, doing in Harvey Nichols buying Comme des Garçons...

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