book reviews and features
Richard Dorment: Warhol After Warhol review - beyond criticism
Tuesday, 09 January 2024
2023 was a good year for Andy Warhol post-mortems: after Nicole Flattery’s Nothing Special, after... Read more... |
Best of 2023: Books
Sunday, 31 December 2023
From wandering Rachmaninoff to Ulysses tribute, or a poet’s boyhood in Dundee to sleeplessness and arboreal inner lives, our reviewers share their literary picks from 2023. ... Read more... |
First Person: novelist Pip Adam on the sound of injustice
Wednesday, 20 December 2023
I know it rattles me, so I try to prepare for it. But I am never fully prepared for the noise. The correctional facilities I have visited over the last 30 years are noisy places. A secure... Read more... |
Angela Leighton: Something, I Forget review - the art of letting go
Monday, 18 December 2023
Half way through Something, I Forget, in a poem entitled “Returns”, and subtitled “Invasion of Ukraine,... Read more... |
Mathias Énard: The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers' Guild review - a man of infinite death
Saturday, 09 December 2023
"Death, as a general statement, is so easy of utterance, of belief", wrote Amy Levy, "it is only when we come face to face with it that we find the great mystery so cruelly hard to realise; for... Read more... |
Anne Michaels: Held review - one story across time
Friday, 24 November 2023
Near the end of My Name is Lucy Barton, Elizabeth Strout’s prize-winning 2016 novel, a creative writing teacher tells Lucy, ‘you will... Read more... |
Ishion Hutchinson: School of Instructions review - learning against estrangement
Monday, 20 November 2023
School of Instructions, a book-length poem composed of six sections, is a virtuosic dance between memory... Read more... |
Jesse Darling: Virgins review - going straight
Thursday, 16 November 2023
Self-described ‘intermittent poet’ and 2023 Turner Prize-nominee Jesse Darling said this in a recent interview for Art Review: ‘I... Read more... |
Justin Lewis: Don't Stop the Music - A History of Pop Music, One Day at a Time review - deft and delightful pop almanac
Tuesday, 07 November 2023
This splendid book proves that trivia need not be trivial, and that a miscellany of apparently disconnected facts can cohere, if done well. It is in the proud lineage of the “toilet book”, a form... Read more... |
Adam Biles: The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews review - the old curiosity bookshop
Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Over 10 years in the making, The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews reflects its namesake in more ways than one. To those familiar, it is paean and tribute to one of the... 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...
House of Games, Hampstead Theatre review - adapted Mamet scr...
There is so much that is right about Jonathan Kent’s new production of House of Games – the casting, the staging, the...
Stile Antico, Wigmore Hall review - a glorious birthday cele...
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PUP, SWG3, Glasgow review - controlled chaos from Canadian p...
According to PUP lead singer Stefan Babcock, the Toronto foursome practiced together a grand total of twice before embarking on their current UK...
Zoe Lyons, Touring - midlife, without the crisis
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The Last Musician of Auschwitz review - a haunting testament...
“It is so disgraceful, what happened there,” says Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, in a comment that is the understatement of the century. She is referring...
Giulio Cesare, The English Concert, Bicket, Barbican review...
Is Giulio Cesare in Egitto, to give the full title, Handel’s best and shapeliest opera? Glyndebourne’s revival of the legendary David...
Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester review - premiere...
Huw Watkins’ Concerto for Orchestra, the fourth new work of his to be commissioned and premiered by the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, is...
DVD/Blu-ray: Slade in Flame
Over the years Slade in Flame has been hailed as one of the greatest rock movies (albeit rarely seen or screened), up...
Music Reissues Weekly: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe
“Soul Scene,” by Echoes Limited, is built from elements of the James Brown sound. But it’s put together in such a way that the result is...