book reviews and features
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Wednesday, 01 October 2025
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com. It followed some hectic and intensive months when a disparate and... Read more... |
Shon Faye: Love in Exile review - the greatest feeling
Tuesday, 18 February 2025
As Valentine’s Day crests around us, and lonely hearts come out of their winter hibernation, what better time to publish writer and journalist Shon Faye’s second book Love in Exile? In... Read more... |
Philip Marsden: Under a Metal Sky review - rock and awe
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
Working on materials was basic to human culture from the start: chipping at flint to make a hand-axe; fashioning bone or wood; drying hides. In time, people discovered that some materials,... Read more... |
Jacqueline Feldman: Precarious Lease review - living on the edge
Saturday, 08 February 2025
Taking on some of the contingent, nebulous quality of its subject, Jacqueline Feldman’s Precarious Lease examines the beginning... Read more... |
Catherine Airey: Confessions review - the crossroads we bear
Tuesday, 28 January 2025
Anglo-Irish author Catherine Airey’s first novel, Confessions, is a puzzle, a game of family secrets... Read more... |
Best of 2024: Books
Tuesday, 31 December 2024
Billie Holiday sings again, Olivia Laing tends to her garden, and Biran Klaas takes a chance: our reviewers discuss their favourite... Read more... |
William J. Mann: Bogie & Bacall review - beyond the screen
Friday, 13 December 2024
What is it about Humphrey Bogart? Why does he still spark interest, still feel relevant, so many decades after his death? It’s a complex question and may be impossible to satisfactorily answer,... Read more... |
Jeff Young: Wild Twin review - a box of tricks
Wednesday, 27 November 2024
The writer, performer, and lecturer Jeff Young’s latest, Wild Twin, tells – ostensibly – the story of his barefoot, Beat-imitative journey through northern Europe in the 1980s. However,... Read more... |
Interview: rising star Chloe Savage on the Arctic, outer space, and igniting children's wonder for the unknown
Thursday, 21 November 2024
How old were you when you first had an image of the Arctic? When you first had that image, what was it that most resonated? Was it its remoteness, the endless snow and ice, the polar bears? Did it... Read more... |
Jon Fosse: Morning and Evening review - after thoughts
Tuesday, 19 November 2024
Jon Fosse talks a lot about thinking. He also thinks – hard – about talking. His prolific and award-winning career in poetry, prose, and drama, might be said, in fact, to unfold a digressive... Read more... |
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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...
East Is South, Hampstead Theatre review - bewildering and un...
Our humanity is defined not only by our use of language, but also by our sense of the spiritual. Whether you are a believer or not, it’s hard to...
Hacks, Season 3, NOW review - acerbic showbiz comedy keeps u...
Dying is easy, comedy is hard, according to the Georgian actor Edmund Kean. Luckily, everybody involved with the much-awarded Hacks...
Album: Basia Bulat - Basia's Palace
Canadian singer Basia Bulat has tried on various musical hats...
Josienne Clarke, Across the Evening Sky, Kings Place review...
On the first date of a 17-concert tour that had its preview at Celtic Connections in January, Across the Evening Sky begins with the...
Shon Faye: Love in Exile review - the greatest feeling
As Valentine’s Day crests around us, and lonely hearts come out of their winter hibernation, what better time to publish writer and journalist...
Blu-ray: Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an inanimate clay figure, brought to life when a magic word is placed inside its mouth....
Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic...
Genius doesn't always tally with equal opportunities, to paraphrase Doris Lessing. Opera houses have a duty to put on new works by women composers...
Unicorn, Garrick Theatre review - wordy and emotionless desi...
Since when has new writing become so passionless? Mike Bartlett is one of the country’s premiere playwrights and his new play, Unicorn,...