book reviews and features
Ruby Tandoh: Cook As You Are review - truly a trailblazer
Monday, 04 October 2021
Ever since her appearance on The Great British Bake Off in 2013, Ruby Tandoh has been a breath of fresh air to the food... Read more... |
10 Questions for writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley
Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Anyone familiar with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s bestseller The Body Keeps the Score (2014) will recognise the ghost of his title in Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s My Body Keeps... Read more... |
Barry Adamson: Up Above the City, Down Beneath the Stars review - the post-punk colossus spills his guts in a raw style
Friday, 24 September 2021
For those not familiar with the murkier corners of British rock music history, Barry Adamson was a significant... Read more... |
Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy, Sky Arts review – too much and not enough
Wednesday, 22 September 2021
Born in 1840, Thomas Hardy lived a life of in-betweens. Modern yet traditional, the son of a builder who went on to become a famous... Read more... |
Colson Whitehead: Harlem Shuffle review - period piece speaks to the present
Tuesday, 21 September 2021
More than once, reading Colson Whitehead’s latest novel Harlem Shuffle, the brilliant Josh and Benny Safdie movie Uncut Gems from 2019 came to mind, which was... Read more... |
Sebastian Faulks: Snow Country review - insects under a stone
Monday, 20 September 2021
Historical fiction – perhaps all fiction – presents its authors with the problem of how to convey contextual information that is external to the plot but necessary to the reader’s understanding of... Read more... |
Claire-Louise Bennett: Checkout 19 review - coming to life
Monday, 06 September 2021
Like any good writer, Claire-Louise Bennett loves lists. Lists are, after all, those moments when words, freed from grammar’s grip, can simply be themselves – do their own thing, show off,... Read more... |
Christopher Clark: Prisoners of Time review - from Kaiser Bill to Dominic Cummings
Friday, 13 August 2021
Historians seldom make the news themselves. However, Christopher Clark – the Australian-born Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University – hogged headlines and filled op-ed pages in... Read more... |
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir: Magma review - love burns in debut novel from Iceland
Tuesday, 03 August 2021
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir’s Magma is certainly not an easy read. It describes, in short chapters... Read more... |
10 Questions for novelist Mieko Kawakami
Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Mieko Kawakami sits firmly amongst the Japanese literati for her sharp and pensive depictions of life in... 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.
It followed some...
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer spa...
How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness...
Album: FaithNYC - Love is a Wish Away
FaithNYC is a vehicle for the singer and songwriter Felice Rosser, an original rooted in reggae...
Perianes, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Payare, Barbica...
When the Venezuelan Rafael Payare was appointed as conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique...
English Teacher, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - Merc...
Props designed like flowers were scattered across the QMU stage for English Teacher's performance. A fitting choice given the Leeds group are...
Kemah Bob, Soho Theatre review - Thailand, massage and menta...
Kemah Bob is a regular on television and radio panel shows and well established on the comedy circuit, but Miss Fortunate is her full-...
[title of show], Southwark Playhouse review - two guys and t...
Not just a backstage musical, a backroom musical!
In the...
Album: Father John Misty - Mahashmashana
The word “mahashmashana” – महामशान in Sanskrit – translates as “great burying ground.” Co-opted as the title of Josh Tillman’s sixth album as...
La Serenissima, Wigmore Hall review - an Italian menu to sav...
For 30 years, La Serenissima have re-mapped the landscape of the Italian Baroque repertoire so that its towering figures, notably Vivaldi, no...
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts
Jon Fosse talks a lot about thinking. He also thinks – hard – about talking. His prolific and award-winning career in poetry, prose, and drama,...