book reviews and features
Extract: Blackface by Ayanna Thompson
Thursday, 06 May 2021
Nearly a year has passed since George Floyd was killed by... Read more... |
Kate Lebo: The Book of Difficult Fruit review - a rich, juicy delight
Tuesday, 27 April 2021
Two years ago, I became preoccupied with beetroot. I didn’t want to eat it, particularly, or learn new ways to cook this crimson-purple veg. Instead I hunted down stories of the “beet-rave”, as it... Read more... |
Michael Spitzer: The Musical Human review - charting our age-old relationship with music
Wednesday, 21 April 2021
Music and time each dwell inside the other. And the more you attend to musical sounds, the more complex their temporal entanglements become.... Read more... |
Jonathan Calvert and George Arbuthnott: Failures of State review - a devastating exposé, slightly mistimed
Wednesday, 14 April 2021
Almost a year ago, in the midst of the first national lockdown, The Sunday Times broke the news that Boris Johnson had failed to attend five consecutive Cobra meetings in the lead up to... Read more... |
Polly Barton: Fifty Sounds review - what is lost in translation
Tuesday, 13 April 2021
Fifty Sounds is translator Polly Barton’s first novel, conceived as part of Fitzcarraldo’s annual... Read more... |
Andrea Bajani: If You Kept a Record of Sins review - where blame, grief and discovery meet
Wednesday, 07 April 2021
“I think it happened to you, too, the first time you arrived.” So begins Andrea Bajani’s second novel (... Read more... |
Will Page: Tarzan Economics - a 'rockonomist' writes
Wednesday, 31 March 2021
The idea behind Tarzan Economics is, in its essence, that “if the vine we are holding onto is withering, we can have confidence to reach out for a new one.” This thesis expounded in Will... Read more... |
Extract: TV by Susan Bordo
Tuesday, 30 March 2021
"Television and I grew up together." As a baby boomer born in 1947, Susan Bordo is roughly the same age as our beloved gogglebox, which began life as a broad box with a ten-inch screen, chunky and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Author Sam Mills on the phenomenon of the 'chauvo-feminist'
Monday, 29 March 2021
Sam Mills’s writing includes the wondrously weird novel The Quiddity of Will Self, the semi-memoir Fragments of My Father, and Chauvo-Feminism (The Indigo Press), which... Read more... |
Charles Saumarez Smith: The Art Museum In Modern Times review – the story of modern architecture
Thursday, 25 March 2021
“This book is a journey of historical discovery, set out sequentially in order to convey a sense of what has changed over time.” Add to this sentence, the title of the work from which it is taken... Read more... |
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Jessie Burton: The House of Fortune review - a muted, sensit...
A sequel is always a hard thing to write, especially if the book that precedes it is a bestseller, adapted for television and read by more than a...
Album: Viagra Boys - Cave World
The third album from Stockholm rowdies Viagra Boys doesn’t muck about with what they do, but it’s more persistently punkin’ than their last. There...
Mick Jagger: My Life as a Rolling Stone review, BBC Two - th...
At the beginning of this film, Mick Jagger says: “What most...
Alcina, Glyndebourne review - Handel on the strand
Reviewing the Grange Festival production of Tamerlano the other day, I noted the difficulty...
Favour, Bush Theatre review - Ambreen Razia's punchy ne...
Where should Leila live — Ilford or Kent? It doesn’t sound like an earth-shattering decision for a 15-year-old to make, but the stakes...
Album: Laura Veirs - Found Light
The last minute of Found Light’s third track “Seaside Haiku” is defined by the repetition of a single phrase: “give but don’t give too...
Music Reissues Weekly: Ferkat Al Ard - Oghneya
Oghneya opens with the extraordinary “Matar Al Sabah.” Jazzy, with an overt Brazilian feel it gently swings and swoons....
The Making of Pinocchio, LIFT 2022, Battersea Arts Centre re...
Pinocchio is one of our most irreverent metamorphosis stories, and in this visually ingenious blend of...
