book reviews and features
Caitlin Merrett King: Always Open Always Closed review - looking for an approach while trying to do the approach
Tuesday, 22 August 2023
Always Open Always Closed is Caitlin Merrett King’s first published work of fiction, and it begins... Read more... |
Marie Darrieussecq: Sleepless review - in search of lost sleep
Thursday, 17 August 2023
“I lost sleep.” So begins Marie Darrieussecq’s elegantly fitful book, Sleepless, now perceptively translated into... Read more... |
Tony Williams: Cole the Magnificent - fantastical tale blends myth, poetry and comedy
Tuesday, 15 August 2023
Cole the Magnificent is a picaresque, fantastical tale of the life (or lives) of a man, Cole, following... Read more... |
Masha Karp: George Orwell and Russia review - dystopia's reality
Thursday, 10 August 2023
The war in Ukraine, which Russia’s President Vladimir Putin insists on calling a “special military operation”, may have given fresh urgency to... Read more... |
Henry Hoke: Open Throat review - if a lion could speak
Wednesday, 09 August 2023
I approached Henry Hoke’s fifth book, Open Throat, with some trepidation. A slim novel (156 pages), it... Read more... |
First Person: Marc Burrows on getting to know Sir Terry Pratchett
Tuesday, 01 August 2023
In a very real sense, Terry Pratchett taught me how to write. I first came across his work when I was 12 years old, in the early 90s. My parents had been given copies of two of the earliest... Read more... |
Lorrie Moore: I am Homeless If This is Not My Home review - between this world and the next
Thursday, 27 July 2023
Lorrie Moore’s brief but haunting I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is a bizarre, unsettling read. At times it’s a road trip, at others a romance, then supernatural horror, Greek... Read more... |
Nick Laird: Up Late review - attention lapses
Tuesday, 18 July 2023
A few pages before the titular poem of Up Late, Nick Laird describes a haircut in a bathroom mirror, and finds a possible art form reflected back: "something like a poem / glances back /... Read more... |
Extract: Bacon in Moscow by James Birch
Friday, 07 July 2023
In 1988, James Birch – curator, art dealer, and gallery owner – took Francis Bacon to Moscow. It was, as he writes, "an unimaginable intrusion of Western Culture into the heart of the Soviet... Read more... |
Fiona Maddocks: Goodbye Russia - Rachmaninoff in Exile review - an affectionate biographical portrait
Wednesday, 28 June 2023
In 1917, in the face of the Bolshevik revolution closing in on his country estate, Rachmaninoff fled Russia, never to return. He was 44, at his peak as composer, pianist and conductor, but spent... 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 £33,000 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
Help to give theartsdesk a future!
It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
Music Reissues Weekly: Roots Rocking Zimbabwe
“Soul Scene,” by Echoes Limited, is built from elements of the James Brown sound. But it’s put together in such a way that the result is...
Supergrass, Barrowland, Glasgow review - nostalgia played wi...
It is a family affair at Supergrass shows these days. There were plenty of parents and offspring filing onto the Barrowland’s famous old...
Louis Cole, Roundhouse review - nothing is everything
London's iconic Roundhouse, packed to the rafters, provided the perfect setting for the UK premiere of Louis Cole's groundbreaking album ...
Album: Peter Doherty - Felt Better Alive
Following on from an impressive set with the Libertines – last year’s No 1 album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade – Peter Doherty...
Here We Are, National Theatre review - Sondheim's sensa...
You don't have to be greeting the modern day with a smile unsupported by events in the wider world to have a field day at Here We Are....
Riefenstahl review - fascinating fascism? Portrait of the Na...
There used to be an unwritten rule among BBC commissioners about how long an interval had to pass before greenlighting a new documentary on a...
Giant, Harold Pinter Theatre review - incendiary Roald Dahl...
When Mark Rosenblatt was preparing his debut play, the miseries of the assault on Gaza were still over the horizon. Now they are here,...
'Classic-era prog’s Olympian pinnacle': Pink Floyd...
Pink Floyd’s “Echoes”, the ineffable progressive rock epic that occupies side two of...
The Surfer review - Nicolas Cage is relentlessly down and ou...
“Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” is the menacing motto (sounds more scary with an Australian accent) of the tanned, muscular denizens of Luna...