book reviews and features
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... |
Moyra Davey: Index Cards review – fragments of the artist
Moyra Davey’s biographical note, included in Fitzcarraldo Editions’ copy of Index Cards, describes “a New... Read more... |
Keiichiro Hirano: A Man review - the best kind of thriller
Sunday, 31 May 2020
Keiichiro Hirano’s A Man has all the trappings of a gripping detective story: a bereaved wife, a... Read more... |
John Grisham: Camino Winds review - morality tale with a light touch
Sunday, 24 May 2020
John Grisham is a brand, in the sense that the reader relies on some sense of what the product is going to be. He is well up in the millions of sales, along with other writers under the “... Read more... |
Maria Reva: Good Citizens Need Not Fear review - tales of gloomy humour and absurdist charm
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
Maria Reva’s humorously gloomy debut collection, centring on the inhabitants of a block of stuffy apartments in Soviet (and... Read more... |
Khaled Nurul Hakim: The Book of Naseeb review – a bold debut
Sunday, 17 May 2020
A small-time heroin dealer harbours idealistic dreams of building a hospital “to help da limmless in Peshawar and Kabul”. This is the premise of The Book of Naseeb, the debut novel from... Read more... |
'What Grandma said (Grandma’s Corona)': sonnets by Claudia Daventry
Sunday, 17 May 2020
A year plagued by Coronavirus is surely a time to dust off a seldom-aired... Read more... |
Caroline Maclean: Circles and Squares review - adventurous art, progressive living and a good gossip
Monday, 11 May 2020
There was a moment in the 1930s when it seemed that contemporary art, as practised in Britain, might join the... Read more... |
Rutger Bregman: Humankind, a Hopeful History review – nice guys finish first
Sunday, 10 May 2020
In retrospect, we will surely see that British battles over the Covid-19 lockdown harboured within them a bitter but half-hidden war of ideas. On one side, the behavioural scientists who first... Read more... |
Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli - III of III
Friday, 08 May 2020
At the end of an exhausting day's driving punctuated by disappointments and false leads, the narrator finds herself back at the Israeli town of Nirim where she spends the night. Slipping off... 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.










