book reviews and features
Christopher Clark: Prisoners of Time review - from Kaiser Bill to Dominic Cummings![]()
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![]()
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir’s Magma is certainly not an easy read. It describes, in short chapters... Read more... |
10 Questions for novelist Mieko Kawakami![]()
Mieko Kawakami sits firmly amongst the Japanese literati for her sharp and pensive depictions of life in... Read more... |
Samantha Walton: Everybody Needs Beauty review - the well of the world![]()
In the opening poem of Samantha Walton's 2018 collection, Self Heal, the speaker is on the tube, that evergreen metaphor of capital's specific barrelling momentum. The tube "will... Read more... |
Test Signal: Northern Anthology of New Writing review – core writing from England's regions![]()
“On the Ordinance Survey map, it has no name”, writes Andrew Michael Hurley, of the wood that nevertheless gives its name to his essay. “Clavicle Wood” provides the first chapter in the ... Read more... |
Adam Mars-Jones: Batlava Lake review - pride and prejudice in the Kosovo War![]()
For a slim book of some 100 pages, Batlava Lake by Adam Mars-Jones is deceptively meandering. The novella is narrated by Barry Ashton, an engineer attached to the British Army troops... Read more... |
Danielle Evans: The Office of Historical Corrections review - what happens when history comes knocking![]()
There’s something refreshing about fiction you can easily trace back to the question “what if... Read more... |
Anna Neima: The Utopians review – after horror, six quests for the good life![]()
Not long after the Nazis came to power, Eberhard Arnold sent a manifesto to Adolf Hitler. The Protestant preacher urged the dictator to “embrace universal love”. With his wife Emmy, Eberhard had... Read more... |
Victoria Mas: The Mad Women's Ball review - compelling plot meets disquieting history![]()
To this day, if you take a stroll down Paris’ Boulevard de l’Hôpital, you’ll come across an imposing building: the... Read more... |
Extract: David Lan's As If By Chance![]()
In June 2001 the London Festival of International Theatre brought Amir Nizar Zuabi’s Alive from ... 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 £33,000 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

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

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...

“Sandra” is one of my favourite tracks from my album Between The Moon and the Milkman which was released last year. While living in...

On the eve of recording an album at Real World Studios, guitarist Adrian Utley and the American trumpet player Eddie Henderson brought their “...

Wow, can it really be 40 years since Solitude Standing, the second studio album by Suzanne Vega who put the 1980s folk revival on the map...

Patrick Marber’s powerful debut about gambling men is 30 years old, born as the Eighties entrepreneurial boom was starting to sour but...

When Giuseppe Torelli made the journey from his birthplace of Verona to Bologna in the late 17th century, the trumpet was still seen as something...

"Julie's story takes place everywhere", says the writer-director Leonardo Van Dijl, whose psychological drama Julie Keeps Quiet has...

Over its crisp 32 minutes and nine songs, Altogether Stranger embraces electropop, lo-fi terrain and gothic solo contemplation. By...

Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic....