book reviews and features
First Person: Marc Burrows on getting to know Sir Terry Pratchett
Tuesday, 01 August 2023
In a very real sense, Terry Pratchett taught me how to write. I first came across his work when I was 12 years old, in the early 90s. My parents had been given copies of two of the earliest... Read more... |
Lorrie Moore: I am Homeless If This is Not My Home review - between this world and the next
Thursday, 27 July 2023
Lorrie Moore’s brief but haunting I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is a bizarre, unsettling read. At times it’s a road trip, at others a romance, then supernatural horror, Greek... Read more... |
Nick Laird: Up Late review - attention lapses
Tuesday, 18 July 2023
A few pages before the titular poem of Up Late, Nick Laird describes a haircut in a bathroom mirror, and finds a possible art form reflected back: "something like a poem / glances back /... Read more... |
Extract: Bacon in Moscow by James Birch
Friday, 07 July 2023
In 1988, James Birch – curator, art dealer, and gallery owner – took Francis Bacon to Moscow. It was, as he writes, "an unimaginable intrusion of Western Culture into the heart of the Soviet... Read more... |
Fiona Maddocks: Goodbye Russia - Rachmaninoff in Exile review - an affectionate biographical portrait
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
In 1917, in the face of the Bolshevik revolution closing in on his country estate, Rachmaninoff fled Russia, never to return. He was 44, at his peak as composer, pianist and conductor, but spent... Read more... |
Jacqueline Rose: The Plague review - tracing our response to tragedy
Saturday, 17 June 2023
In The Plague: Living Death in Our Times, Jacqueline Rose makes a surprising pivot from her usual topics – Sylvia Plath, children’s fiction, Zionism, to name a few – to throw a spotlight... Read more... |
Caleb Azumah Nelson: Small Worlds review - Ghana and London dance together
Wednesday, 14 June 2023
Small Worlds, the second novel from Caleb Azumah Nelson, is a delight: a book with a real feeling for sound and dance, and a sense of place from London to Ghana and back again. It’s a... Read more... |
Andrey Kurkov: Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv review - a city speaks its multitudes
Saturday, 10 June 2023
Rock music helped to subvert the Soviet Union by glamorising youthful rebellion and the West. In the opening scene of Andrey Kurkov’s... Read more... |
Helen Czerski: Blue Machine review - how the ocean works
Tuesday, 06 June 2023
If you cannot even step into the same river twice, how to take the measure of the ocean? Dipping your toes at the beach is irresistible, but uninformative. Sampling stuff out at sea helps more,... Read more... |
Polly Toynbee: An Uneasy Inheritance - My Family and Other Radicals review - looking back
Monday, 05 June 2023
There are few contemporary journalists whose names are instantly familiar – and usually it’s for the wrong... Read more... |
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First Person: Director Sir David Pountney on creating a new...
Purcell came very early to me. When I was a chorister at St. John’s Cambridge “Jehova quam multi sunt” was a perennial favourite and we were...
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Surprised by Oxford review - wishy-washy romance ticks the s...
The misty streets and lofty spires of Oxford star in this ...
Album: Steven Wilson - The Harmony Codex
Steven Wilson has merged various genres – metal, shoegaze, pop, dance, jazz – in his solo career without shrugging off the...
Strange Way of Life review - Pedro Almodóvar's queer We...
Less is more, except when it isn’t. Among the latest batch of overlong Oscar-tipped movies by celebrated auteurs such as Christopher Nolan (...
Octopolis, Hampstead Theatre review - blue, blue, electric b...
How many hearts does an octopus have? Answer: three. This pub quiz clincher is just one of the many fascinating facts that emerge from ...
The National, OVO Hydro, Glasgow, review - commanding arenas...
There remains something disconcerting about seeing the National as arena rockers. Perhaps it’s the nonchalant stage entrance as they stroll on, a...