wed 29/10/2025

book reviews and features

Olivia Laing: Funny Weather review - essays on art, framed as antidote

Jessica Payn

Olivia Laing’s non-fiction has become well-known for the way it moves by means of allusive shifts, hybridity, and pooling ideas, making a roaming, discursive inspection of one broad primary...

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Souvankham Thammavongsa: How to Pronounce Knife review - neat finishes with loose ends

Daniel Lewis

There’s a sort of enduring mystery about short stories. They rarely have the reassuring arithmetic of poetry or – with apologies to Murakami – novelistic sweep of longer fiction. They don’t...

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Valerie Hansen: The Year 1000 review - the first globe-trotting age

Boyd Tonkin

In 1018, the Princess of Chen – a member of the Liao dynasty that ruled northern China – was buried in a treasure-filled tomb in Inner Mongolia. Excavated in the 1980s, her grave contained luxury...

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Mark Townsend: No Return review - a masterclass in journalism

Sarah Collins

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,...

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Oliver Craske: Indian Sun, The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar review - a master receives masterly treatment

mark Kidel

Ravi Shankar was one of the giants of 20th century music. A...

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Fitzcarraldo Editions wins Republic of Consciousness Prize

Jessica Payn

South London-based publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions has once more been awarded the Republic of Consciousness Prize,...

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Sam Bourne: To Kill a Man review – the woman who fought back

Marina Vaizey

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...

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Nathalie Léger: The White Dress review – masterfully introverted

Charlie Stone

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...

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Samuel Beckett: Dream of Fair to Middling Women review – the literary titan laid bare

Daniel Baksi

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 ...

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Brendan Cleary, Great Eastern, Brighton review – last orders

Nick Hasted

St. Patrick’s Day, and socialising itself, has been all but cancelled. But...

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