book reviews and features
Bette Howland: Blue in Chicago review – the city on trial, with the writer as witness
Tuesday, 07 July 2020
You feel at times, while reading the collection Blue in Chicago, that Bette Howland might have missed her vocation... Read more... |
Terri White: Coming Undone review - a British journalist unravels in NYC
Sunday, 05 July 2020
The journalistic addiction-memoir is a crowded genre these days: Details editor Dan Perez chronicles his massive intake of Vicodin and other opioids in As Needed for Pain; ... Read more... |
Camille Laurens: Little Dancer Aged Fourteen review - the story of a sculpture
Sunday, 05 July 2020
Edgar Degas is famous for his depictions of ballet dancers. His drawings, paintings and sculptures of young... Read more... |
Tahar Ben Jelloun: The Punishment review - triumph over torture
Sunday, 28 June 2020
In July 1966, Tahar Ben Jelloun’s life changed. As punishment for participating in a peaceful student demonstration against the authoritarian King Hassan II of... Read more... |
A. Kendra Greene: The Museum of Whales You Will Never See review - a thoughtful museum piece
Saturday, 27 June 2020
The Museum of Whales is an unfolding: a slow process of describing a country, its people, and its past through its esoteric and bizarre museums. The book is structured into galleries... Read more... |
Joseph Mazur: The Clock Mirage review – brief histories of time
Sunday, 21 June 2020
The Greek philosopher Zeno’s paradoxes, which have plagued thinkers for around 2500 years, tell us that super-speedy Achilles can never outrun the tortoise and that an arrow in flight must always... Read more... |
Margarita García Robayo: Holiday Heart review – understated and acute
Sunday, 14 June 2020
The epigraph chosen for Holiday Heart locates the book within the tense of an “afterwards”: not passion, but what follows, the wakeful lull and wide-eyed studying of another, in which... Read more... |
Yuri Herrera: A Silent Fury review – the fire last time
Sunday, 14 June 2020
History, as protestors around the world currently insist, can be the art of forgetting – and erasure – as much as of memory. Although it explores a single incident from a century ago, Yuri Herrera... Read more... |
Book extract: Holiday Heart by Margarita García Robayo translated by Charlotte Coombe
Sunday, 07 June 2020
Holiday heart, instead of sentimental love discovered on vacation, describes a faltering organ, overloaded from excess consumption: a heart at risk. In Margarita Garcia Robayo’s brilliantly... Read more... |
Matthew Kneale: Pilgrims review – adventures on the road to Rome
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Some things really never change. After a blatant cheat perpetrated by a well-connected lout, one of the humblest pilgrims in Matthew Kneale’s band reminds us that “rich folks’ justice is a penny... 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.
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Fake, ITV1 review - be careful what you wish for
The art of the conman is persuading their victim to fool themselves, which is the premise that lies at the core of this Australian drama series....
Music Reissues Weekly: John McKay - Sixes and Sevens
Sixes and Sevens is a surprise. A big one. Since leaving Siouxsie and the Banshees in September 1979, John McKay has...
Pimpinone, Royal Opera in the Linbury Theatre review - farce...
Full marks to the Royal Opera for good planning: one first night knocking us all sideways with the darkest German operatic tragedy followed by...
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Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, Tate Modern review - memories are...
A traditional Korean house has appeared at Tate Modern....
Die Walküre, Royal Opera review - total music drama
Wagner’s universe, in the second of his Ring operas which brings semi-humans on board to challenge the gods, matches exaltation and misery, terror...
Georgia Mancio, Alan Broadbent, Pizza Express Dean Street re...
Does it spark joy? Yes, definitely...and maybe we music critics should ask the Marie Kondo question more often. London-based vocalist/lyricist...