book reviews and features
Brenda Maddox: Reading the Rocks review - revelations of geology
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Reading the Rocks has a provocative subtitle, “How Victorian Geologists Discovered the Secret of Life”, indicating the role of... Read more... |
John Man: Amazons review - the real warrior women of the ancient world
Sunday, 25 June 2017
As Wonder Woman hits screens worldwide, the publication of a book that explores the myth and... Read more... |
David Sedaris: Theft By Finding review - comic literary talent of historic value
Sunday, 18 June 2017
In a voice of distinctive, high-pitched nasal whimsy, comic essayist and memoirist David Sedaris finds humour with the precision of a mosquito after blood. British... Read more... |
Andrew O'Hagan: The Secret Life review – troubling tales from the online underground
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Imagine that you come across a story by a journalist who, writing for the Daily Mail or The Sun, steals the identity of a real young man from a poor neighbourhood of south-east... Read more... |
Elif Batuman: The Idiot review - memories of student life and travels meander
Sunday, 11 June 2017
University, anyone? Student days? If you were ever an undergraduate, who does not remember the simultaneous sense of dislocation and excitement, the feeling of the familiar combined with a heady... Read more... |
Peter Ackroyd: Queer City - London's gay life over two millennia
Sunday, 04 June 2017
2017 is proving the year of celebrating queer. To mark 50 years of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we... Read more... |
Evgeny Kissin: Memoirs and Reflections review - Russian education, European conviction, Jewish heritage
Sunday, 04 June 2017
"Generally speaking," writes Evgeny Kissin in one of the many generous tributes to those whose artistry he most admires, "the mastery of [Carlo Maria] Giulini is exactly what is dearest of all to... Read more... |
Hanif Kureishi, Brighton Festival review - a combative, funny and moving talk
Monday, 29 May 2017
Hanif Kureishi and his interviewer Mark Lawson are both wearing black Nike trainers, and long professional acquaintance makes them as comfortable with each other as... Read more... |
Arundhati Roy: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness review - brilliant fragments of divided India
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Just as in the United States, the quest among Indian authors in English to deliver the single, knock-out... Read more... |
Billy Bragg: Roots, Radicals and Rockers review - riffing on skiffle, and more besides
Sunday, 28 May 2017
Wow! An unconventional opening for a book review maybe, but ‘“wow!” nonetheless. Subtitled "How Skiffle Changed the World", this is an... Read more... |
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latest in today
Music Reissues Weekly: The Telstar Story, The Heinz Sessions...
“Telstar” was released 60 years ago this week. On 17 August 1962...
Counting and Cracking, Edinburgh International Festival 2022...
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...
Prom 35, Wang, Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä review - crystallin...
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...
Edinburgh Fringe 2022 reviews: Sara Barron / Jayde Adams / S...
Sara Barron, Pleasance Courtyard ★★...
Album: Cass McCombs - Heartmind
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...
Prom 34, Soltani, BBC Philharmonic, Ollikainen review - jour...
Proper music tells stories just about itself, the stern pedagogues insist; it doesn’t (or anyway shouldn’t) paint descriptive pictures of places...
Shetland, Series 7, BBC One review - Douglas Henshall is bac...
The last couple of series of Shetland (BBC One) brought the...
Eiffel review - sensuous secret history
This is a romantic historical epic with elan, giving sensual immediacy to a fanciful secret history of the Eiffel Tower, here inspired by a...
