book reviews and features
Jonathan Coe: The Broken Mirror review - potent, crystalline, but rather small
Sunday, 12 November 2017
Novelist Jonathan Coe has, for some time, been assuming the role of an Evelyn Waugh of the... Read more... |
Richard F Thomas: Why Dylan Matters review - tangled up in clues
Sunday, 12 November 2017
A year ago, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, his work commended by the committee "... Read more... |
Han Kang: The White Book review - between what is, what was, what might have been
Sunday, 05 November 2017
A woman gives birth alone two months early in a frost-bound village in the Korean countryside. In Poland, a solitary woman washes down white migraine pills and concludes she must write. The child... Read more... |
Oliver Sacks: The River of Consciousness review - a luminous final collection of essays
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Oliver Sacks was the neurologist – and historian of science, and naturalist – whose exceptionally elegant, clear and accessible prose has captivated that almost mythical creature, the general... Read more... |
Susie Boyt: Love & Fame review - as highly strung as a violin factory
Sunday, 29 October 2017
At first glance, Susie Boyt’s sixth novel seems in danger of echoing her... Read more... |
Marcel Proust: Letters to the Lady Upstairs - a very slim volume
Sunday, 29 October 2017
Marcel Proust was a prolific letter-writer. He wrote tens of thousands of them, and at speed, as can be seen from the two facsimiles which are included with the text of Letters to the Lady... Read more... |
Philip Pullman: La Belle Sauvage review - not quite equal
Sunday, 22 October 2017
La Belle Sauvage, the first instalment of Philip Pullman’s eagerly-awaited new trilogy The Book of Dust, opens in the Trout, a rambling Thames-side pub on the outskirts of Port... Read more... |
Peggy Seeger: First Time Ever - A Memoir, review - a remarkable life
Sunday, 22 October 2017
Seeger. A name to strike sparks with almost anyone, whether or not they have an interest in folk music... Read more... |
Niall Ferguson: The Square and the Tower review - of groups and power
Sunday, 15 October 2017
The controversial historian Niall Ferguson is the author of some dozen books, including substantial... Read more... |
Alan Hollinghurst: The Sparsholt Affair - pictures at an exhibition, with telling gaps
Sunday, 08 October 2017
Television has paid its dues to the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act - rather feebly, with some rotten acting, in Man in an Orange Shirt; brilliantly, with mostly superb... Read more... |
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