fri 08/11/2024

book reviews and features

Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander

Marina Vaizey

University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady...

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Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia

Tom Birchenough

2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we...

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Evgeny Kissin: Memoirs and Reflections review - Russian education, European conviction, Jewish heritage

David Nice

"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to...

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Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talk

Nick Hasted

Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as...

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Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness review - brilliant fragments of divided India

Boyd Tonkin

Just as in the United States, the quest among Indian authors in English to deliver the single, knock-out...

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Billy Bragg: Roots, Radicals and Rockers review - riffing on skiffle, and more besides

Liz Thomson

Wow! An unconventional opening for a book review maybe, but ‘“wow!” nonetheless. Subtitled "How Skiffle Changed the World", this is an...

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Muhsin Al-Ramli: 'During Saddam’s regime at least we knew who the enemy was' - interview

Rachel Halliburton

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...

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Colm Tóibín: House of Names review - bleakly beautiful twilight of the gods

Boyd Tonkin

The news that Colm Tóibín has written a novel about Orestes, Clytemnestra, Electra and the whole accursed...

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Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women review - a bit too abstract and post-modern

Markie Robson-Scott

“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...

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Hanif Kureishi: The Nothing review - a glittering chamber of ice

Matthew Wright

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...

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The Day of the Jackal, Sky Atlantic review - Frederick Forsy...

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Pavel Kolesnikov returned to the Hallé last night with a bobby-dazzler of a concerto. He’s a laid-back dude in appearance, with no tie, flapping...

L’Addition, BAC review - top billing for physical comedy duo

Can experimental theatre survive the decades? This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Forced Entertainment theatre company, whose mission is...

The Problem With People review - local zero

A quarter of an hour into The Problem With People, there’s a 15-second clip of Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero – and it’s the best...

Album: Garfunkel & Garfunkel: Father and Son

A father and son union – the first joint collaboration by Garfunkel père et fils. Art Junior it seems has already released two solo...

Tucker Zimmerman, The Lexington, London review - undersung o...

Tucker Zimmerman is singing a number called “Don’t Go Crazy (Go in Peace)”. At 83, he performs sitting down. Surrounded by support band Iji, who...

Album: Primal Scream - Come Ahead

In many ways, Primal Scream have had a strikingly similar career path to the Rolling Stones – despite them forming some 20 years after Mick and...

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