book reviews and features
Kelefa Sanneh: Major Labels review - diary of an omnivorous musicophile![]()
Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres is American critic Kelefa Sanneh’s ambitious survey of musical history. As such, it risks remaining only a... Read more... |
10 Questions for Bruce Lindsay, biographer of Ivor Cutler
Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Sitting Room by Bruce Lindsay, is the first full-length... Read more... |
Patrick Duff: The Singer review - agony and ecstasy of a rock'n'roll life![]()
As our favourite rock stars become elders, there has been a steady flow of autobiographies, some ghosted, some... Read more... |
Patti Smith: A Book of Days review - adding to Insta's debris![]()
On April Fool’s Day, in 1978, the godmother of American punk, Patti Smith, jumped offstage at the Rainbow Theatre in... Read more... |
Derek Owusu: Losing the Plot review - the finest perfume![]()
Derek Owusu’s debut That Reminds Me won the Desmond Elliot Prize in 2020. When asked what it was that she loved most about Owusu’s semi-autobiographical 117-page book, Preti Taneja, chair... Read more... |
Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of the Imagination, Science Museum review - travel to a galaxy not so far away![]()
Scenes that stay in the mind: Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator peeling back the skin on his forearm to reveal the gleaming machinery within; a beady-eyed, new-born Alien bursting from John... Read more... |
Annie Proulx: Fen, Bog & Swamp review - defending the wetlands' bounty![]()
Annie Proulx’s Fen, Bog & Swamp sees the Pulitzer-winning novelist join a number of authors decrying the ecological devastation we’re wreaking on the planet. James Rebanks’ ... Read more... |
Cormac McCarthy: The Passenger review - abstruse, descriptive, digressive![]()
Cormac McCarthy’s first books in over a decade are coming out this year, a month apart from one another. The Passenger tells the story of deep-sea diver Bobby Western, desperately in love... Read more... |
Mariana Enriquez: Our Share of Night review - delving into a violent, erotic world![]()
Tense with horror and the sticky darkness of the Argentinian night, Mariana Enriquez’s writing is rich and occult. Her epic novel, Our Share of Night, vividly translated from the Spanish... Read more... |
William Boyd: The Romantic review - historical soap opera, anyone?![]()
Writing in the Edinburgh Review in 1814, Francis Jeffrey began his review of Wordsworth’s The Excursion with a provocative denunciation of romanticism: “This will never do,” he... Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

The Biba dresses are way too colourful, the shop’s interior about 10 times too bright… and did anybody really say ”happening threads”...

It has been seven years since Gareth Edwards directed, for me, the best of the new generation of Star Wars films, Rogue One. Having made...

There’s a charmingly retro feel to Opera North’s new Falstaff, which comes from it being done as part of their new “...

Ken Loach has occasionally invested his realist TV dramas and movies with moments of magical realism – football inspiring them in The Golden...

Unbelievable is a strange title for a slightly strange show, the brainchild of Derren Brown, Andrew O’Connor and Andy Nyman, a...

These days Black Sabbath aren’t short of admirers in the arts and even further afield. Artists as disparate as veteran soul man, Charles Bradley...

Jorja Smith said she named her new album Falling or Flying to describe the uncertainty she’s felt about her career following the success...

You go to a concert, three-quarters of it popular classics – also great masterpieces – having been told you have to hear a brilliant young cellist...

We begin with a dead-end. In 1966, Michael Peppiatt – at the time “an obscure young man” – travelled to...

The music of Daniel Lopatin – AKA Oneohtrix Point Never – exists at the sonic/...