book reviews and features
Ishion Hutchinson: School of Instructions review - learning against estrangement
Monday, 20 November 2023
School of Instructions, a book-length poem composed of six sections, is a virtuosic dance between memory... Read more... |
Jesse Darling: Virgins review - going straight
Thursday, 16 November 2023
Self-described ‘intermittent poet’ and 2023 Turner Prize-nominee Jesse Darling said this in a recent interview for Art Review: ‘I... Read more... |
Justin Lewis: Don't Stop the Music - A History of Pop Music, One Day at a Time review - deft and delightful pop almanac
Tuesday, 07 November 2023
This splendid book proves that trivia need not be trivial, and that a miscellany of apparently disconnected facts can cohere, if done well. It is in the proud lineage of the “toilet book”, a form... Read more... |
Adam Biles: The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews review - the old curiosity bookshop
Tuesday, 31 October 2023
Over 10 years in the making, The Shakespeare and Company Book of Interviews reflects its namesake in more ways than one. To those familiar, it is paean and tribute to one of the... Read more... |
Charlie Porter: Bring No Clothes - Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion review - dress to impress
Thursday, 26 October 2023
It’s not hard to miss the fact that Bloomsbury is back in fashion at the moment. This summer, it felt like everyone’s Instagram story showed a... Read more... |
Adam Sisman: The Secret Life of John le Carré review - tinker, tailor, soldier, cheat
Thursday, 12 October 2023
This book is quite a sad read. I had been looking forward to it, as a posthumous supplement to Adam Sisman’s 2015 biography of John le Carré/David Cornwell, which, at the time, quite clearly drew... Read more... |
Caspar Henderson: A Book of Noises - Notes on the Auraculous review - a call to ears
Thursday, 05 October 2023
Have you ever considered the sheer range of sounds? You may think of deliberate human efforts to move the air: music and song, poetry or... Read more... |
'The people behind the postcards': an interview with Priya Hein, author of 'Riambel'
Tuesday, 03 October 2023
Priya Hein’s debut novel, Riambel, is an excoriating examination of Mauritius’ socio-political structures and the colonial past from which they have sprung. Centred around Noemi, a young... Read more... |
Michael Peppiatt: Giacometti in Paris review - approaching the impossible
Thursday, 28 September 2023
We begin with a dead-end. In 1966, Michael Peppiatt – at the time “an obscure young man” – travelled to Paris to... Read more... |
Annie Ernaux: Shame review - the translation of pain
Tuesday, 26 September 2023
The latest translation of Annie Ernaux’s Shame – a text most closely akin to a long-form essay – is an... Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
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
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Mary, Queen of Scots, English National Opera review - heroic...
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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,...
Vollmond, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch + Terrain Boris...
Imagine: you take your seat at the best restaurant in town, the waiter arrives with a flourish to fill your water glass, you hold it out and he...
Patrick Duff, The Mount Without, Bristol review - sacred mus...
There is an atmosphere of otherworldly stillness within the stony womb of a large dilapidated church in...
Album: Tim Hecker - Shards
The question of personality in abstract and ambient music has always been a fascinating one. Without conventional signifiers of expressiveness,...
Music Reissues Weekly: Sharks - Car Crash Supergroup
Sharks were formed in 1972 by bassist Andy Fraser after he left Free. There were two albums, line-up changes and ripples which resonated after the...
Fat Dog, Chalk, Brighton review - a frenetic techno-rock jug...
Ro first saw Fat Dog, before anyone had heard of them, at the Windmill in Brixton in front of a crowd of about 25 people. Their manic energy blew...