mon 06/10/2025

book reviews and features

Book extract: Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

theartsdesk

The first half of Minor Detail is set in an Israeli military camp in the Negev desert in August 1949, during the conflict celebrated as the War of Independence in Israel and a year...

Read more...

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld: The Discomfort of Evening review - lovelessness, loneliness, bodies and their limits

Jessica Payn

“I was ten and stopped taking off my coat.” This bare beginning marks the opening of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s startling and lyrical novel, translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchison: an...

Read more...

Alex George: The Paris Hours review - captivating yet frustrating

Charlie Stone

A century on, the années folles of Paris between the wars do not cease to excite readers and writers of all varieties. Alex George’s latest...

Read more...

Catherine Belton: Putin’s People review - an instant classic

James Dowsett

In October 1991, Russian prosecutors gained access to the Communist Party Central Committee’s headquarters in Moscow’s Old Square. The offices had been sealed after President Boris Yeltsin ordered...

Read more...

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...

Read more...

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...

Read more...

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 (...

Read more...

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...

Read more...

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...

Read more...

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...

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... ...
Susanna, Opera North review - hybrid staging of a Handel ora...

Turning Handel oratorio into opera can be a rewarding enterprise. Charles Edwards’ presentation of Joshua, over 15 years ago, for...

Scott, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Whelan, RIAM, Dublin review...

One miracle of musical performance is that a work you’ve loved for years can be revealed as never before in an outstanding interpretation. That...

Pop Will Eat Itself's 'Delete Everything' is...

Pop Will Eat Itself deserve to be more celebrated. The ...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Earlies - These Were The Earlies

The reappearance of These Were The Earlies for its 21st-anniversary is a surprise. Although The Earlies' debut LP received a maximum-...

France, LPO, Gardner, RFH review - the sound of other worlds

Even in the 21st century, it may not take that long for an outlandish literary experiment to jump genres and become an established musical classic...

Like Water for Chocolate, Royal Ballet review - splendid dan...

Christopher Wheeldon has mined a new seam of narrative pieces for the...

Rohtko, Barbican review - postmodern meditation on fake and...

It’s truly thrilling to see the Barbican embracing big concept long-form theatre again, seeking out productions that are as conceptually...

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