tue 04/11/2025

book reviews and features

Annie Ernaux: The Years, review - time’s flow

Katherine Waters

“When you were our age, how did you imagine your life? What did you hope for?” It is a video of a classroom south-east of the Périphérique separating Paris from the working-class suburbs. The...

Read more...

Rachel Heng: Suicide Club review - skin-deep dystopia

Katherine Waters

When Lea is nervous she picks at the skin near the nail of her thumb. When she draws blood the wound repairs instantly because she is a member of the Second Wave endowed with SmartBlood™ and...

Read more...

Stella Tillyard: The Great Level review – reason and passion in the Fens and Virginia

Boyd Tonkin

The Fens of East Anglia, and the lonely coasts that skirt them, usually sit well below the horizon of mainstream culture. Yet when England’s flatlands and their maritime margins do find a literary...

Read more...

Guy Stagg, The Crossway review – a gripping pilgrimage through faith and doubt

Boyd Tonkin

On new year’s day in 2013, Guy Stagg set out to walk alone from Canterbury to Jerusalem. He planned this journey, which would take ten months, cross 11 countries and cover 5500km, in the wake of...

Read more...

Georges Simenon: The Krull House review – timely revival for a noir masterwork

Boyd Tonkin

Georges Simenon began to write his Inspector Maigret mysteries in the early 1930s. Not long after after, the famously productive Belgian-born novelist – who could polish off a Maigret inside a...

Read more...

Listed: 10 classic tales of the city

Boyd Tonkin

Now is the time of year when weary travellers find themselves in some sun-strafed piazza, gazing in bemusement at a world-renowned monument and wondering why on earth they came. Hectored by...

Read more...

Katharine Kilalea: OK, Mr Field review - architecture and alienation on the Cape Town coast

Boyd Tonkin

Modern novels with an architectural theme have, to say the least, a mixed pedigree. At their finest, as in Thomas Bernhard’s Correction, the fluidity and ambiguity of prose fiction...

Read more...

Sarah Langford: In Your Defence review - messy lives

Katherine Waters

When Sarah Langford goes to work, she puts on warpaint and wig and acts. But she is not an actor. She defends those who might or might not be guilty of the crimes with with they’ve been charged,...

Read more...

Enter theartsdesk / h Club Young Influencer of the Year award

theartsdesk

Are you a young blogger, vlogger or writer in the field of the arts, books and culture? If so, we've a competition for you to enter.

The Hospital Club’s annual h Club100...

Read more...

Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott: Swan Song review - Capote redux

Marina Vaizey

Here you will find Babe Paley, Slim Keith, CZ Guest, Gloria Guinness, Lee Radziwill, Marella Agnelli, the stylish leaders of society, gorgeous, gilded, well-married ladies: the men they were with...

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... ...
Macbeth, RSC, Stratford review - Glaswegian gangs and ghouli...

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what’s so very different about Belfast and Glasgow, both of which I have visited in the last few...

Sananda Maitreya, Town Hall, Birmingham review - 80s megasta...

During a false start to “Billy Don’t Fall”, on Sunday night at Birmingham’s iconic Town Hall, Sananda Maitreya took the opportunity to address the...

First Person: Kerem Hasan on the transformative experience o...

There is a scene in the second act of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking in which the man condemned to death, Joseph De...

Mr Scorsese, Apple TV review - perfectly pitched documentary...

This five-parter by Rebecca Miller is essential viewing for any...

Madama Butterfly, Irish National Opera review - visual and v...

Emotional truth backed up by musical sophistication is what saves Puccini’s drama about a geisha deserted by an American officer from mawkishness...

Hallé John Adams festival, Bridgewater Hall / RNCM, Manchest...

Am I dreaming? Did I really see a living composer of...

'Vicious Delicious' is a tasty, burlesque-rockin...

Three of last year’s finest singles were by Luvcat, a classy-but-naughty Eartha Kitt-style bad girl steeped in burlesque-rock’n’roll spirit. In...

theartsdesk at Wexford Festival Opera 2025 - two strong prod...

A drawback of choosing relatively or very obscure operas, as they've been mostly doing in Wexford Festival since 1951, is that the audiences...

Bach's B minor Mass, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, C...

The greatest procession of mass movements ever composed merits the best line-up of soloists, both vocal and instrumental, as well as the perfect...

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