book reviews and features
Enter theartsdesk's Young Reviewer of the Year Award
Saturday, 15 July 2017
The Hospital Club’s annual h.Club100 awards celebrate the most influential and innovative people working in the UK’s creative industries, with nominations from the worlds of film and fashion, art... Read more... |
Michael Connelly: The Late Show review - mesmerising and believable characters
Sunday, 09 July 2017
Readers have been committed fans since 1992, when the sometime crime reporter... Read more... |
Danny Goldberg: In Search of the Lost Chord review - 1967 well remembered
Sunday, 09 July 2017
I was 10 in 1967 though I remember much about the year, indeed about the era, not least the release of Sgt Pepper and the first live global satellite broadcast, when the... Read more... |
Eureka: novelist Anthony Quinn on completing his acclaimed trilogy
Sunday, 02 July 2017
I am intrigued by those writers who plan their novels with the bristling rigour of a military strategist,... Read more... |
Jonathan Miles: St Petersburg review - culture and calamity
Sunday, 02 July 2017
Talk about survival: St Petersburg, Petrograd, Leningrad, now again St Petersburg, all the same... Read more... |
Chris Patten: First Confession - A Sort of Memoir review - remembrances of government and power
Sunday, 02 July 2017
It’s 25 years since Chris Patten lost his seat as Conservative MP for Bath. The 1992 election was called by... Read more... |
Brenda Maddox: Reading the Rocks review - revelations of geology
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role of... Read more... |
John Man: Amazons review - the real warrior women of the ancient world
Sunday, 25 June 2017
As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and... Read more... |
David Sedaris: Theft By Finding review - comic literary talent of historic value
Sunday, 18 June 2017
In a voice of distinctive, high-pitched nasal whimsy, comic essayist and memoirist David Sedaris finds humour with the precision of a mosquito after blood. British... Read more... |
Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east... Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Interview: Polar photographer Sebastian Copeland on a lifeti...
Sebastian Copeland’s images of the Arctic may look otherworldly – with their tilting cathedrals of ice, hypnotic light, and fractured seascapes...
Rats on Rafts, The Victoria review - crepuscular Dutch quint...
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...
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Steven Knight is beginning to resemble the British version of Taylor Sheridan. While Sheridan has been saturating our...
Fledermaus, Irish National Opera review - sex, please, we...
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...
Chamayou, BBC Philharmonic, Morlot, Bridgewater Hall, Manche...
The second of the Philharmonic’s Boulez-Ravel celebrations (birth centenary of the former, 150th of the latter) brought Bertrand...
The Capulets and the Montagues, English Touring Opera review...
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, Wilton's Music Hall review - madcap comic o...
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 ...
Bilk, O2 Academy 2, Birmingham review - Essex rock'n...
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...