book reviews and features
Kazuo Ishiguro: Klara and the Sun review - what makes us human?![]()
Unsettling, unremitting and psychologically stark, Klara and the Sun has all the hallmarks of a... Read more... |
Katherine Angel: Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again review – the complexities of consent![]()
Katherine Angel borrows the title of her latest book, Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, from an essay by Foucault. The phrase parodies the supposed... Read more... |
Frances Larson: Undreamed Shores review - journeys without maps![]()
Beatrice Blackwood had lived in a clifftop village between surf and jungle on Bougainville Island, part of the Solomon archipelago in the South Pacific. She hunted, fished and grew crops with... Read more... |
Joseph Andras: Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us review - injustice and tenderness in the Algerian War![]()
Joseph Andras wastes no time. “Not a proud and forthright rain, no. A stingy rain. Mean. Playing dirty.” This is how his debut novel kicks off, and it’s a fitting start for his retelling of the... Read more... |
Karla Suárez: Havana Year Zero review - maths, phones and mysteries in down-at-heel Cuba![]()
Havana, 1993. Far away, the fall of the Soviet empire has suddenly stripped Fidel Castro’s Cuba of subsidy and... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Amina Cain on her first novel and her eternal fascination with suggestion![]()
Amina Cain is a writer of near-naked spaces and roomy characters. Her debut collection of short fiction, I... Read more... |
Jackie Kay: Bessie Smith review – vivid writing about the Empress of the Blues![]()
Blues singer Bessie Smith (1894-... Read more... |
Patricia Lockwood: No One is Talking About This review - first novel goes beyond the internet![]()
This is a novel, says Patricia Lockwood in her Twitter feed, about being very inside the... Read more... |
CLR James: Minty Alley review - love and betrayal in the barrack-yard![]()
CLR James came to London from Trinidad in 1932, clutching the manuscript of his first and only novel. He soon found work, writing about cricket for the Manchester Guardian, as well as a... Read more... |
Tabitha Lasley: Sea State review - a one-woman odyssey through UK oil![]()
Straight off the bat, Tabitha Lasley’s soon-to-be ex-boss points out the fatal flaw in her life-changing project. Jettisoning her job at a women’s magazine, a long-term boyfriend, a cramped London... Read more... |
Pages
latest in today

The gifted writer-director Stefan...

Ania Magliano, Pleasance Courtyard ★★...

Celebrating, if that is the right word, his 75th year, Loudon Wainwright III offers us his 26th studio album in 52...

What happens when great musicians play weak music? I couldn’t help but think about that while I listened to the musicians of Chineke! Chamber...

“Telstar” was released 60 years ago this week. On 17 August 1962...

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...

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...


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...