book reviews and features
Muhsin Al-Ramli: 'During Saddam’s regime at least we knew who the enemy was' - interview
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Saddam Hussein’s name is never mentioned in The President’s Gardens, even though he haunts every page. The one time that the reader encounters him directly, he is referred to simply by... Read more... |
Colm Tóibín: House of Names review - bleakly beautiful twilight of the gods
Sunday, 21 May 2017
The news that Colm Tóibín has written a novel about Orestes, Clytemnestra, Electra and the whole accursed... Read more... |
Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women review - a bit too abstract and post-modern
Sunday, 14 May 2017
“I was a lamprey eel in a former life,” says a woman in “Scheherazade”, one of the most intriguing of the seven stories in Men without Women - it was previously published in the New... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi: The Nothing review - a glittering chamber of ice
Sunday, 14 May 2017
Kureishi is mostly loved for his bittersweet panoramas of suburban London, ribald and piquant with satire. The Nothing discards that broad canvas and creeps into a glittering... Read more... |
Bella Bathurst: Sound, review - an illuminating book on deafness
Sunday, 14 May 2017
Shelve with Oliver Sacks. In Sound: Stories of Hearing Lost and Found Bella Bathurst has written a fascinating and illuminating book on deafness. Of what it’s like to lose your hearing –... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Henry Marsh - Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery
Sunday, 07 May 2017
Is it true that the blob of jelly resembling convoluted grey matter that we carry around in our skulls is really what we are? And how we are, and why? This is the profound question that is... Read more... |
theartsdesk at The Hospital Club
Wednesday, 03 May 2017
The Arts Desk is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Hospital Club in... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Nicholas Hytner - Balancing Acts
Sunday, 30 April 2017
After the first preview of Mike Leigh’s play Two Thousand Years at the ... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Donna Leon - Earthly Remains
Sunday, 23 April 2017
It’s 25 years this year since Donna Leon introduced us to Commissario Guido Brunetti, a man who in his way has done as much for... Read more... |
'What did you do?' Actors reveal their Shakespearean secrets
Sunday, 23 April 2017
Much of the brilliance of Shakespeare lies in the openness, or ambiguity, of his texts. Whereas a novelist will often describe a character, an action or a scene in the most minute detail,... Read more... |
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latest in today
Zola review - high-energy comic thriller tackles sex work
It’s hard to imagine a movie more of its time than Zola, as it takes on...
Wonderville, Palace Theatre review - magic and illusion fami...
Variety is a form of entertainment most usually seen on Saturday night television these days, but Wonderville is an attempt to bring it...
Album: Alan Vega - Alan Vega After Dark
Following in the slipstream of wide critical acclaim for posthumous album ...
Brauss, BBC Philharmonic, Gernon, BBC Proms review - surpris...
Two nights after the Scottish Chamber Orchestra had brought the first great E flat major symphony to the Proms – Mozart’s 39th – a serendipitous...
First Person: young musicians Brooke Simpson and Erin Black...
The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain’s Hope...
Album: Tomu DJ - Feminista
The endless circles and spirals that dance music moves in can take you to some strange places.
It is, after all, a little...
RhineGold, Birmingham Opera Company, Symphony Hall review -...
The love of power corrupts, the power of love falters or fails. The essence of...
Johnston, BBCNOW, Bancroft, BBC Proms - laments and luminosi...
The Proms are back, even if they don’t yet feel remotely...
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir: Magma review - love burns in debut no...
Thora Hjörleifsdóttir’s Magma is certainly not an easy read. It describes, in short...
