tue 12/08/2025

book reviews and features

Adam Mars-Jones: Batlava Lake review - pride and prejudice in the Kosovo War

Zehra Kazmi

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

Daniel Lewis

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

Boyd Tonkin

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

Gaby Frost

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

David Lan

In June 2001 the London Festival of International Theatre brought Amir Nizar Zuabi’s Alive from ...

Read more...

Elinor Cleghorn: Unwell Women review – misunderstanding and misdiagnosis

Lydia Bunt

I’m one of the women in the pages of Elinor Cleghorn’s new history of the female body, Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World. I’ve dealt with strange...

Read more...

Ed Miliband: Go Big - How to Fix Our World review - reasons to hope

Liz Thomson

Almost alone among my friends, I liked and admired Ed Miliband, renewing my on-off relationship with the Labour...

Read more...

Nichola Raihani: The Social Instinct review - the habits of co-operation

Jon Turney

An army on the move must be as disturbing as it is, on occasion, inspiring. In E.L. Doctorow’s startlingly good civil war novel The March, General Sherman’s column proceeds inexorably...

Read more...

Kylie Whitehead: Absorbed review - boundary-blurry, darkly funny debut

CP Hunter

Absorbed meets Allison at the end of her relationship with Owen. They are at a New Year's Eve party when she realises that their 10-year partnership has wound down. So far, so normal. But...

Read more...

Rosie Wilby: The Breakup Monologues review - do breakups make us stronger, better people?

Lydia Bunt

According to Rosie Wilby, “breaking up and staying together are simply two sides of the same coin. They are a flick of a switch apart, separated only by one fleeting moment of madness, or perhaps...

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... ...
BBC Proms: Akhmetshina, LPO, Gardner review - liquid luxurie...

Water surged through this Prom from first spray to last drop....

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Lily Blumkin / Shamik Chakra...

Lily Blumkin Gilded Balloon @ Patter House ★★★

Lily Blumkin has always...

Budapest Festival Orchestra, Iván Fischer, Edinburgh Interna...

Fresh from their triumph at the Proms, the Budapest Festival Orchestra arrived at the Edinburgh International Festival with a programme that...

Tom at the Farm, Edinburgh Fringe 2025 review - desire and d...

As shockingly beautiful as it is horrifyingly brutal, actor Armando Babaioff’s deeply Brazilian adaptation of thriller Tom at the Farm...

MARS, Irish National Opera review - silly space oddity with...

The craft heads to Mars, the music remains below on earth. Which is partly intentional: composer Jennifer Walshe tells us she listened to “synth...

Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews - Desiree Burch / Andy Parsons

Desiree Burch, Monkey Barrel ★★★★

Desiree Burch is a bundle of energy as...

Album: Rise Against - Ricochet

Ricochet is Chicago punk veterans Rise Against’s 10th album and,...

Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review...

With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across...

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