fri 29/03/2024

book reviews and features

Elizabeth Kay: Seven Lies review - can big-money debut match the hype?

Jasper Rees

Seven Lies is the debut novel of Elizabeth Kay, who under another name works as a commissioning editor...

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Don Winslow: Broken review - a staggering crash course in the possibilities of crime

Marina Vaizey

One of the masters of both mystery and thriller, Don Winslow’s latest volume is a reading bonanza: a collection of six crime-focused short novels (‘novellas’ feels too fancy for a writer so...

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Garth Greenwell: Cleanness review - pornography and high art

Markie Robson-Scott

Both Cleanness and Garth Greenwell’s award-winning first novel, What Belongs to You, are set in Bulgaria, with a gay American teacher as the anonymous first-person narrator (...

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Helen McCarthy: Double Lives - A History of Working Motherhood review – doing it for themselves

Gaby Frost

Want to enact mass social change? Make it about children. About their health, their prosperity, their future. Make it about men; their security, their wellbeing. Make it about society. What...

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Hilary Mantel: The Mirror & the Light review - magnificence must have an end

David Nice

Praise be to quarantine days for the chance to savour this, the crowning glory of the Wolf Hall trilogy - if not with the supernatural vigilance and attentiveness of Thomas Cromwell...

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Olivia Laing: Funny Weather review - essays on art, framed as antidote

Jessica Payn

Olivia Laing’s non-fiction has become well-known for the way it moves by means of allusive shifts, hybridity, and pooling ideas, making a roaming, discursive inspection of one broad primary...

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Souvankham Thammavongsa: How to Pronounce Knife review - neat finishes with loose ends

Daniel Lewis

There’s a sort of enduring mystery about short stories. They rarely have the reassuring arithmetic of poetry or – with apologies to Murakami – novelistic sweep of longer fiction. They don’t...

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Valerie Hansen: The Year 1000 review - the first globe-trotting age

Boyd Tonkin

In 1018, the Princess of Chen – a member of the Liao dynasty that ruled northern China – was buried in a treasure-filled tomb in Inner Mongolia. Excavated in the 1980s, her grave contained luxury...

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Mark Townsend: No Return review - a masterclass in journalism

Sarah Collins

When Amer Deghayes departed for Syria in a truck leaving from Birmingham, a worker from a youth arts organisation in Brighton had been trying to get in touch with him. She wanted to inform Amer,...

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Oliver Craske: Indian Sun, The Life and Music of Ravi Shankar review - a master receives masterly treatment

mark Kidel

Ravi Shankar was one of the giants of 20th century music. A...

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Bach's Easter Oratorio, OAE, Whelan, QEH review – the j...

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