book reviews and features
Francis Spufford: Light Perpetual review - time regained![]()
On 25 November 1944, a German V2 rocket struck the Woolworths store in New Cross at Saturday lunchtime. It killed 168 people. Francis Spufford’s second... Read more... |
Alice Ash: Paradise Block review - a matrix-like collection that reinvents the short story genre![]()
“Burglar alarms jangled through the empty hallways of Paradise Block.” In this ramshackle, lonely tenement, such alarms might be one’s only company. Yet, in this intricate collection of... Read more... |
Eddie S Glaude Jr: Begin Again - James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lessons for Today review - can America avoid the fire this time?![]()
I suspect that the work of James Baldwin is not all that familiar to readers in Britain, perhaps not even to... Read more... |
Olivia Sudjic: Asylum Road review - trauma, barely suppressed![]()
In Asylum Road, Olivia Sudjic's third book, everything is purposeful, each loaded gun introduced... Read more... |
Raven Leilani: Luster - portrait of the artist as a black millennial woman![]()
One of the finer episodes in Raven Leilani’s startling debut (which contains an embarrassment of fine episodes)... Read more... |
Mark Fisher: Postcapitalist Desire - The Final Lectures review - imagining the alternative![]()
Postcapitalist Desire: The Final Lectures is a collection of transcripts, recording weekly group lectures... Read more... |
Julia Bell: Radical Attention review - a clear rendering of our withering attention spans![]()
You go out for a walk and leave your devices at home; your head feels a little bit clearer. But when you get back and plonk yourself... Read more... |
George Saunders: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain review – Russian lessons in literature and life![]()
Before he published fiction, George Saunders trained as an engineer and wrote technical reports. The Booker-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo,... Read more... |
Courttia Newland: A River Called Time review - an ethereality check![]()
It is near impossible to imagine what the world would look like today if slavery and colonialism had... Read more... |
Best of 2020: Books![]()
Stuck in our homes for most of this year, we found comfort and escape from books in ways unprecedented in 2020. The chance to dwell in alternative spaces, or inhabit different rhythms of living.... Read more... |
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The gifted writer-director Stefan...

Ania Magliano, Pleasance Courtyard ★★...

Celebrating, if that is the right word, his 75th year, Loudon Wainwright III offers us his 26th studio album in 52...

What happens when great musicians play weak music? I couldn’t help but think about that while I listened to the musicians of Chineke! Chamber...

“Telstar” was released 60 years ago this week. On 17 August 1962...

First, a bit of housekeeping. Maybe it was the three-and-a-half-hour duration, or maybe the unfamiliar Sri Lankan subject matter, or maybe even...

Klaus Mäkelä, 26-year old chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris, lined up for the same role at the Royal Concertgebouw...


Cass McCombs has something of the detailed, opaque depth of his late peer Jason Molina, with more taste for pop shapes under a broader musical...