book reviews and features
Muhsin Al-Ramli: 'During Saddam’s regime at least we knew who the enemy was' - interview
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![]()
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![]()
“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![]()
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![]()
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![]()
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![]()
The Arts Desk is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Hospital Club in... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Nicholas Hytner - Balancing Acts![]()
After the first preview of Mike Leigh’s play Two Thousand Years at the ... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Donna Leon - Earthly Remains![]()
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![]()
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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