book reviews and features
Mark Townsend: No Return review - a masterclass in journalism
Wednesday, 08 April 2020
When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in Brighton had been trying to get in touch with him. She wanted to inform Amer,... Read more... |
Oliver Craske: Indian Sun, The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar review - a master receives masterly treatment
Thursday, 02 April 2020
Ravi Shankar was one of the giants of 20th century music. A... Read more... |
Fitzcarraldo Editions wins Republic of Consciousness Prize
Tuesday, 31 March 2020
South London-based publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions has once more been awarded the Republic of Consciousness Prize,... Read more... |
Sam Bourne: To Kill a Man review – the woman who fought back
Sunday, 29 March 2020
Assassinate the President! Obliterate history by torching libraries and murdering historians! Crazy leaders and fake news are just a few of the subjects tackled by political journalist and... Read more... |
Nathalie Léger: The White Dress review – masterfully introverted
Sunday, 22 March 2020
Nathalie Léger’s The White Dress brings personal and public tragedy together in a narrative as absorbingly melancholic as its subject is shocking. The story described by Léger’s narrator... Read more... |
Samuel Beckett: Dream of Fair to Middling Women review – the literary titan laid bare
Sunday, 22 March 2020
That any writer “struggling to make ends meet” would apply themselves to the making of Dream of Fair to Middling Women is something of a complexity. Written in ... Read more... |
Brendan Cleary, Great Eastern, Brighton review – last orders
Thursday, 19 March 2020
St. Patrick’s Day, and socialising itself, has been all but cancelled. But... Read more... |
Christopher Booker: Groupthink review – an uncritical history of political correctness
Sunday, 15 March 2020
“Groupthink”, according to Christopher Booker, is “one of the most valuable guides to collective human behaviour we have ever been given.” But what is it exactly? It begins Booker’s final,... Read more... |
Emma Glass: Rest and Be Thankful review – fiction from the paediatric front-line
Sunday, 15 March 2020
How do you prevent a sick baby in a high-care cubicle, his frail chest swamped in secretions, from drowning in his own “loose mucus”? Remove a suction catheter from its wrapping and insert it... Read more... |
Mieko Kawakami: Breasts and Eggs review - a book of two halves
Sunday, 15 March 2020
Mieko Kawakami’s Breasts and Eggs is a true novel of two halves and is (excuse the pun) a bit of a curate’s egg. Kawakami’s bio at the beginning of the text explains that the novel was... 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.
It followed some...
Music Reissues Weekly: John Cale - The Academy in Peril, Par...
The return to shops of a consecutive sequence of five of John Cale's Seventies albums through different labels is undoubtedly coincidental. All...
Conclave review - secrets and lies in the Vatican's inn...
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Twelfth Night, Orange Tree Theatre review - perfectly pitche...
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The Lightning Thief: The Percy Jackson Musical, The Other Pa...
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Album: Lucinda Williams Sings The Beatles from Abbey Road
When first I clicked on the stream for this album, I really wasn’t sure about it. In fact, I thought I wasn’t going to like it, much as I had...
Expendable, Royal Court review - intensely felt family drama
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Senna, Netflix review - the life and legend of Brazil's...
Brazilian Formula One triple-champion Ayrton Senna was already...
The Purists, Kiln Theatre review - warm, witty, thoughtful a...
Watching Dan McCabe’s 2019 play, older folk might be reminded of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band’s indelible lyrics, “Can blue men sing the...