book reviews and features
Jenny Uglow: Mr Lear - A Life of Art and Nonsense review - a lonely Victorian life, so richly illustrated![]()
Jenny Uglow’s biography of Edward Lear (1812-1888) is a meander, almost day by day, through the long and... Read more... |
Naum Kleiman: Eisenstein on Paper review - a lavish journey into the unconscious![]()
"From drawing, via the theatre, to the cinema". Naum Kleiman's introductory qualification of Sergey Eisenstein's own self-perceived line in his Film Form is one that he follows in a... Read more... |
Jaron Lanier: Dawn of the New Everything review - pioneer of virtual reality tells his story![]()
Jaron Lanier has quite a story to tell. From a teenage flute-playing goat-herd in New Mexico... Read more... |
Rachel Hewitt: A Revolution of Feeling review - from passions to emotions![]()
Utopias have a way of going up in flames. Rachel Hewitt’s new book, A Revolution of Feeling: The Decade that Forged the Modern Mind, charts the revolutionary fervour and disappointment... Read more... |
Reza Aslan: God - A Human History review - on being 'sapiens', and believing![]()
It is not just the season of holidays and holy days in the monotheistic ... Read more... |
Javier Marías: Between Eternities review - matters of life and death from the Spanish master![]()
One of these years, Javier Marías will probably win the Nobel Prize in Literature. If and when that... Read more... |
Tina Brown: The Vanity Fair Diaries 1983-1992 review - portrait of an era of glitz and excess![]()
Tina Brown’s first Christmas issue of Vanity Fair in 1984 had this to say about “the sulky,... Read more... |
The Best of AA Gill review - posthumous words collected![]()
Word wizard. Grammar bully. Sentence shark. AA Gill didn’t play fair by syntax: he pounced on it, surprising it into splendid shapes. And who cared when he wooed readers with anarchy and aplomb?... Read more... |
Jonathan Coe: The Broken Mirror review - potent, crystalline, but rather small![]()
Novelist Jonathan Coe has, for some time, been assuming the role of an Evelyn Waugh of the... Read more... |
Richard F Thomas: Why Dylan Matters review - tangled up in clues![]()
A year ago, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, his work commended by the committee "... 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 £33,000 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

It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...

Sebastian Copeland’s images of the Arctic may look otherworldly – with their tilting cathedrals of ice, hypnotic light, and fractured seascapes...

An album is one thing, a live show is another. A truism of course, but one which is inescapable during this London date by the Rotterdam-based...

Myra Hess was one of the most important figures in British cultural life in the mid-20th century: the pre-eminent...

Steven Knight is beginning to resemble the British version of Taylor Sheridan. While Sheridan has been saturating our...

Let’s finally face the elephant in the room: the most popular Viennese operetta, packed with hit numbers, no longer works on the stage as a whole...

The second of the Philharmonic’s Boulez-Ravel celebrations (birth centenary of the former, 150th of the latter) brought Bertrand...

A year ago, after a deeply disappointing Manon Lescaut at Hackney Empire, I wrote here that English Touring Opera had often excelled in...

Harry Hill reminds us at one point during his latest touring show that he’s 60, but there’s no let-up in the energy he brings to ...

Sol Abrahams, singer and guitarist for Essex rock’n’rollers Bilk, was suffering from a bit of guitar trouble in Birmingham on Friday evening. By...