thu 28/08/2025

book reviews and features

Olivia Sudjic: Asylum Road review - trauma, barely suppressed

India Lewis

In Asylum Road, Olivia Sudjic's third book, everything is purposeful, each loaded gun introduced...

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Raven Leilani: Luster - portrait of the artist as a black millennial woman

Daniel Lewis

One of the finer episodes in Raven Leilani’s startling debut (which contains an embarrassment of fine episodes)...

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Mark Fisher: Postcapitalist Desire - The Final Lectures review - imagining the alternative

Daniel Baksi

Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures is a collection of transcripts, recording weekly group lectures...

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Julia Bell: Radical Attention review - a clear rendering of our withering attention spans

Lydia Bunt

You go out for a walk and leave your devices at home; your head feels a little bit clearer. But when you get back and plonk yourself...

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George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain review – Russian lessons in literature and life

Boyd Tonkin

Before he published fiction, George Saunders trained as an engineer and wrote technical reports. The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo,...

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Courttia Newland: A River Called Time review - an ethereality check

Charlie Stone

It is near impossible to imagine what the world would look like today if slavery and colonialism had...

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Best of 2020: Books

theartsdesk

Stuck in our homes for most of this year, we found comfort and escape from books in ways unprecedented in 2020. The chance to dwell in alternative spaces, or inhabit different rhythms of living....

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Book extract: Fat by Hanne Blank

theartsdesk

"Ugh, I just feel so fat today," the woman near me in the locker room says to her friend as they get dressed after their workout. I look over – discreetly, as one does – to catch a glimpse of the...

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Goran Vojnović: The Fig Tree review - falling apart together as Yugoslavia splits

Boyd Tonkin

Seven years ago, at a literary festival in the Croatian port of Pula, I heard Goran Vojnović talk about...

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theartsdesk Q&A: poet laureate Simon Armitage on landscapes, libraries, home and edgelands

India Lewis

Simon Armitage is a poet at the top of his game: in his second year as poet laureate, he has given voice to the...

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latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
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If she decided to run for election, Suranne Jones would probably stand a good chance of winning. The Chadderton-born actress and...

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One door closes, and another one opens. A lot. It’s extraordinary what value those two simple additions to the Royal Albert Hall stage lent to...

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King & Conqueror, BBC One review - not many kicks in 106...

In this strangely dreary recreation of 11th century history, it’s not just grim oop north, it’s grim everywhere. King & Conqueror...

Juniper Blood, Donmar Warehouse review - where ideas and ide...

Playwright Mike Bartlett is, like many writers, a chronicler of both contemporary manners and of the state of the nation. In his latest domestic...

Album: The Hives - The Hives Forever, Forever The Hives

The Hives must be one of the most self-assured bands around – but not without good reason. Ever exuberant, all their tunes are short and sweet,...

BBC Proms: Faust, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Nelsons revie...

Does the orchestra that sways together play together? Quite apart from their (reliably gorgeous) sound, the tight-packed strings of the...

Album: Benedicte Maurseth - Mirra

During the opening seconds of Mirra, an unusual sound leaps out – a grunting. It’s integral to a shifting aural pallete which also...

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