sun 29/06/2025

book reviews and features

Book extract: Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

theartsdesk

Between 1991 to 2012, Belorussian journalist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich travelled the countries that constituted the former...

Read more...

Book extract: Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich

theartsdesk

Between 1991 to 2012, Belorussian journalist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich travelled the countries that constituted the former...

Read more...

Caroline Moorehead: A House in the Mountains review – the women's war against Fascism

Boyd Tonkin

In September 1944, a heavily pregnant Resistance activist in the north of German-occupied Italy was arrested on a visit to Milan. Lisetta Giua, a law student and fiancée of the Jewish anti-Fascist...

Read more...

Irenosen Okojie: Nudibranch review - daring and surreal

Jessica Payn

Visceral, gaudy, alien, otherworldly to the point of being almost improbably imaginative, the nudibranch serves as an appropriate figure for Nigerian-British writer Irenosen Okojie’s muscularly...

Read more...

Julian Barnes: The Man in the Red Coat review – all that glitters…

Sarah Collins

“Chauvinism is the worst form of ignorance” is the maxim of Dr Pozzi, the hero of Julian Barnes’s latest book...

Read more...

Michael Connelly: The Night Fire review - unputdownable

Marina Vaizey

Ballard and Bosch sound like some dystopian upmarket commodity. They are, but deep in with the low life. They are Michael Connolly’s new duo of detectives, one in semi-disgrace, one retired. Throw...

Read more...

Benjamin Markovits: Christmas in Austin review – Essinger family reunion

Daniel Baksi

Paul Essinger has quit life as a professional tennis player and retired to his native Texas where, over the...

Read more...

Jung Chang: Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister review – China's century in three women's lives

Boyd Tonkin

In 1930, a couple of romantically involved Chinese expats in Berlin – both revolutionaries in their own way – went on a farewell date. One of them, Deng Yan-da, was due to return home to continue...

Read more...

Sarah Hall: Sudden Traveller review - lyrical and luminous

Jessica Payn

Movement, flight, searching, the quest for a destination: as its title might suggest, Sarah Hall’s latest ...

Read more...

Chantal Ackerman: My Mother Laughs review - too umbilically linked?

India Lewis

My Mother Laughs was first published in Chantal Ackerman’s native French in 2013. This year it has been...

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.

 

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunit...

The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s...

Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - a battle of sunshine and...

Sometimes, as the first act of Beethoven’s Fidelio closes, the chorus of prisoners discreetly fade away backstage as their brief taste of...

Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play...

Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story o...

The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the...

theartsdesk Q&A: director Andreas Dresen on his anti-Naz...

Andreas Dresen directs socially engaged realist films that invariably relay personal and political messages; the result can be tough but is...

Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage...

Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is...

Alfred Brendel 1931-2025 - a personal tribute

Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated over the last year or...

Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs...

Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters