book reviews and features
Ottessa Moshfegh: Death in Her Hands review - a case of murder mind![]()
Death in Her Hands was a forgotten manuscript, the product of a series of daily automatic writing exercises... Read more... |
Sudhir Hazareesingh: Black Spartacus review – the life, and thought, of the first black super-hero![]()
The former slave, and coachman on a sugar plantation, began one of his early public proclamations in a typically defiant vein: “I am Toussaint Louverture, you have perhaps heard my name.” At that... Read more... |
Ian Williams: Reproduction review - a dazzling kaleidoscope of life's tragicomedy![]()
Ian Williams’s writing is always in motion. For his 2012 poetry collection Personals, and since, he has... Read more... |
Emma Cline: Daddy review - scintillating short stories by the author of The Girls![]()
The Girls, Emma Cline’s acclaimed debut novel of 2016, was billed as a story based on the Manson murders. But in fact, like some of the stories in Daddy, her new short-story... Read more... |
Naomi Klein: On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal review - an unapologetic manifesto![]()
On Fire brings together a decade’s worth of dispatches from the frontline of the... Read more... |
James Rebanks: English Pastoral, An Inheritance review - a manifesto for a radical agricultural rethink![]()
Coming from a family of farmers, with periods of time spent working on a farm in the past ten years, I found James Rebanks’ English Pastoral: An Inheritance to be a highly... Read more... |
William Feaver: The Lives of Lucian Freud: Fame 1968-2011 review - mesmerising, exhaustive and obsessively detailed![]()
This is a biography like no other, more or less dictated by... Read more... |
Nick Hornby: Just Like You review - funny but inauthentic Brexit novel![]()
Nick Hornby’s protagonists are worlds apart. Joseph is a Black 22-year-old with a “portfolio career", which includes shift work at a butcher’s and a leisure centre and the distant dream of... Read more... |
Susanna Clarke: Piranesi review - the mysteries of the House![]()
The man called Piranesi lives in a House (he likes Capital Letters, and he tells the story). This House consists of an endless labyrinth, like “an infinite series of classical buildings knitted... Read more... |
Matthew Sperling: Viral review - whip-smart satire about the void at the heart of tech![]()
Strange, that novels like this, which seem to have their finger on the pulse of the zeitgeist, already... Read more... |
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