tue 24/06/2025

book reviews and features

Timothy Day: I Saw Eternity the Other Night review - heavenly harmony, earthly discord

Boyd Tonkin

In 1955, Sylvia Plath attended the Advent Carol Service at King’s College in Cambridge. Like countless other visitors, listeners and viewers before and since, she was entranced by “the tall chapel...

Read more...

Ed Vulliamy: When Words Fail review - the band plays on

David Nice

If you're seeking ideas for new playlists and diverse suggestions for reading - and when better to look than at this time of year? - then beware: you may be overwhelmed by the infectious...

Read more...

Boris Akunin: Black City review - a novel to sharpen the wits

Marina Vaizey

It is 1914 – a fateful year for assassinations, war and revolution. The fictional Erast Petrovich Fandorin,...

Read more...

Global fiction: the pick of 2018

Boyd Tonkin

If you believe the bulk of the “books of the year” features that drift like stray tinsel across the media at this time of year, Britain’s literary taste-makers only enjoy the flavours of the...

Read more...

Matthew Dennison: Eternal Boy review – the banker who stayed forever young

Boyd Tonkin

In Ian McEwan’s 1987 novel The Child in Time, a high-powered publisher and politician named Charles Darke quits his posts, regresses to a child-like state, and frolics in the woods like a...

Read more...

Daša Drndić: Belladonna review - a tragicomic journey into Europe's darkness

Boyd Tonkin

Daša Drndić, the Croatian author who died in June aged 71, has posthumously won the second Warwick Prize for Women in Translation for her coruscating novel Belladonna. The award, set up...

Read more...

Dramatic Exchanges review - a brilliant slice of theatre history

Marina Vaizey

Dramatic Exchanges is a dazzling array of correspondence, stretching over more than a century, between...

Read more...

Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night review - a pairing of loner detectives

Marina Vaizey

The master of the Southern California...

Read more...

Michael Caine: Blowing the Bloody Doors Off review - an actor's handbook, annotated by experience

Marina Vaizey

What a charmer! An irresistible combination of diffidence and confidence, Michael Caine is so much more than Alfie...

Read more...

Julian Baggini: How the World Thinks review - a whirlwind tour of ideas

Marina Vaizey

The intrepid philosopher Julian Baggini has travelled the world, going to academic conferences, interviewing scores of practicing philosophers from academics to gurus, trying to figure out and pin...

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... ...
Immersive Night Music Show, Makita, Londinium Ensemble, Worl...

To mark this year’s summer solstice, a small audience gathered at London’s newest concert venue, the World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens, a small and...

Kieran Hodgson, Soho Theatre review - a love affair soured b...

Kieran Hodgson is known to television viewers from Two Doors Down and to online fans for his spoofs of TV dramas; but comedy...

theartsdesk on Vinyl 91: Sex Pistols, Pink Floyd, Tropical F...

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Frank From Blue Velvet I Am Frank (Property of the Lost) + Column258...

Outrageous, U&Drama review - skilfully-executed depictio...

If somebody submitted a treatment for a new costume drama series set in the...

Album: Durand and the Indications - Flowers

Neo-soul devotees Durand Jones and the Indications mine a vein of sensuous sounds, at the soft end of a genre that's partly defined by the raw...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Sonics - High Time

“Theirs is truly rock in extremis, a précis of the youthful impetuosity and cathartic chaos at the heart of real rock ’n roll.”

This extract...

Album: Benson Boone - American Heart

I first had a conversation about Benson Boone without realizing it was him we were talking about. It went something like: “Did...

28 Years Later review - an unsentimental, undead education

The 23 years since 28 Days Later and especially those since Danny Boyle’s soulful encapsulation of Britain’s best spirit at the 2012...

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