book reviews and features
Billy Bragg: Roots, Radicals and Rockers review - riffing on skiffle, and more besides
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Wow! An unconventional opening for a book review maybe, but ‘“wow!” nonetheless. Subtitled "How Skiffle Changed the World", this is an... Read more... |
Muhsin Al-Ramli: 'During Saddam’s regime at least we knew who the enemy was' - interview
Sunday, 28 May 2017
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... Read more... |
Colm Tóibín: House of Names review - bleakly beautiful twilight of the gods
Sunday, 21 May 2017
The news that Colm Tóibín has written a novel about Orestes, Clytemnestra, Electra and the whole accursed... Read more... |
Haruki Murakami: Men Without Women review - a bit too abstract and post-modern
Sunday, 14 May 2017
“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... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi: The Nothing review - a glittering chamber of ice
Sunday, 14 May 2017
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... Read more... |
Bella Bathurst: Sound, review - an illuminating book on deafness
Sunday, 14 May 2017
Shelve with Oliver Sacks. In Sound: Stories of Hearing Lost and Found Bella Bathurst has written a fascinating and illuminating book on deafness. Of what it’s like to lose your hearing –... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Henry Marsh - Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery
Sunday, 07 May 2017
Is it true that the blob of jelly resembling convoluted grey matter that we carry around in our skulls is really what we are? And how we are, and why? This is the profound question that is... Read more... |
theartsdesk at The Hospital Club
Wednesday, 03 May 2017
The Arts Desk is delighted to announce a new partnership with The Hospital Club in... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Nicholas Hytner - Balancing Acts
Sunday, 30 April 2017
After the first preview of Mike Leigh’s play Two Thousand Years at the ... Read more... |
Sunday Book: Donna Leon - Earthly Remains
Sunday, 23 April 2017
It’s 25 years this year since Donna Leon introduced us to Commissario Guido Brunetti, a man who in his way has done as much for... 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
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Much Ado About Nothing, RSC, Stratford - Messina FC scores o...
Fragile egos abound. An older person (usually a man) has to bring the best out of the stars, but mustn’t neglect the team ethic....
Zsuzsanna Gahse: Mountainish review - seeking refuge
Mountainish by Zsuzsanna Gahse is a collection of 515 notes, each contributing to an expansive kaleidoscope of mountain encounters....
DVD/Blu-ray: All We Imagine is Light
All We Imagine as Light focuses on the lives of three women in contemporary...
Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Isata Kanneh-Mason, Wigmore Hall review...
I came to Isata and Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s Wigmore Hall recital on Saturday armed with a certain degree of scepticism. Not about the siblings’...
Simon Boccanegra, Opera North review - ‘dramatic staging’ pr...
Opera North have recently pioneered a way of presenting some big works which they call “dramatic concert stagings”, performing in concert halls as...
Mahler 8, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - lights on high
Transcendence is everywhere in Mahler’s most ambitious symphony, from the flaming opening hymn to the upper reaches in the epic setting of Goethe’...
Album: Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars
Following a tradition that reaches back to the The Who’s Tommy, bands and musicians with serious artistic ambition have created rock...
Music Reissues Weekly: The Hamburg Repertoire
The blurb on the front of the double-CD set The Hamburg Repertoire says it collects “The original recordings of songs...
Philharmonia, Alsop, RFH / Levit, Abramović, QEH review - mi...
“Let the music guide your imagination” was never going to be the slogan of the Southbank Centre’s Multitudes festival. Its 13 events...