thu 19/06/2025

book reviews and features

'The first thing I do when I wake up is write.' Hilary Mantel, 1952-2022

Jasper Rees

Hilary Mantel, who has died at the age of 70, was a maker of literary history. Wolf Hall, an action-packed 650-page brick of a book about the rise and rise of Thomas Cromwell, won...

Read more...

Ken Auletta: Hollywood Ending - Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence review - if the tide had turned in 2002...

Sebastian Scotney

It was not until October 2017 that The New York Times ran a...

Read more...

Olivier Guez: The Disappearance of Josef Mengele review - the Nazi who was never found

India Lewis

Bringing Olivier Guez’s novel The Disappearance of Josef Mengele on a beach holiday may seem like an odd choice (such is the lot of a reviewer). This incongruity transformed into...

Read more...

Amalie Smith: Thread Ripper review - the tangled web we weave

Hannah Hutching

Sitting in the park on a hot summer’s day, life began to imitate art. I had been soaking up the sun’s now overpowering rays for over an hour and was beginning to feel its radiating effects.

...

Read more...

Phoebe Power: Book of Days review - the clack of walking poles, the clink of scallop shell

Harriet Mercer

The word “shrine” somersaults me back to the path of the Camino de Santiago. I have lost count of the faces that smiled up from photos positioned in the hollow of trees, some with little plastic...

Read more...

Jessie Burton: The House of Fortune review - a muted, sensitive sequel

India Lewis

A sequel is always a hard thing to write, especially if the book that precedes it is a bestseller, adapted for television and read by more than a million people. Yet Jessie Burton’s The House...

Read more...

Katya Adaui: Here Be Icebergs review - odd relations

India Lewis

The title of Katya Adaui’s debut collection in English is taken from one of the 12 short stories it contains: an...

Read more...

Stanislav Aseyev: In Isolation - Dispatches from Occupied Donbas review - journeys through space and time in Ukraine

Hugh Barnes

Stanislav Aseyev is a Ukrainian writer who came in from the cold. Until the spring of 2014, he was an aspiring...

Read more...

Mieko Kawakami: All the Lovers in the Night review - the raw relatability of loneliness

Izzy Smith

Mieko Kawakami is the champion of the loner. Since achieving immense success in the UK with her translated works, she has become an indie fiction icon for her modern, visceral depictions of...

Read more...

Philip Ball: The Book of Minds review - thinking about the box

Jon Turney

Years ago, one of the leading mathematicians in the country tried to explain to me what his real work was like. When he was on the case, he said, he could be doing a range of other things – having...

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 £49,000 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

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
The Midnight Bell, Sadler's Wells review - a first repr...

Rarely has a revival given a firmer thumbs-up for the future of dance-theatre. Yet Matthew Bourne’s latest show, first aired at the tail-end of...

Album: HAIM - I Quit

Haim’s profile just grows and grows. Since their last album, youngest sibling Alana’s starring role in Paul Thomas Anderson’s whimsical Seventies...

Aldeburgh Festival, Weekend 1 review - dance to the music of...

This year’s Aldeburgh Festival – the 76th – takes as its motto a line from Shelley‘s Prometheus Unbound. The poet speaks of despair “...

Bonnie Raitt, Brighton Dome review - a top night with a char...

If you walked into a bar in the US, say in one of the southern states, and Bonnie Raitt and her band were playing, you’d have the best night of...

Hidden Door Festival 2025 review - the transformative Edinbu...

"When I was your age, I worked in a corrugated cardboard factory!" is a phrase my father was fond of telling me as a teenager, presumably in an...

Edward Burra, Tate Britain review - watercolour made mainstr...

It’s unusual to leave an exhibition liking an artist’s work less than when you went in, but...

Joyceana around Bloomsday, Dublin review - flawless adaptati...

It amuses me that Dubliners dress up in Edwardian finery on 16 June. After all, this was the date in 1904 when James Joyce first walked out with...

Stereophonic, Duke of York's Theatre review - rich slic...

The tag “the most Tony-nominated play of all time” may mean less to London theatregoers than it does to New Yorkers, but Stereophonic,...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters