Our latest reviews
Vagabond by Eddi Reader
Glaswegian Eddi Reader has had a long and varied career: busker, actor, backup singer for some big names, including Gang of Four and Eurythmics, brief pop stardom with Fairground Attraction, and then a series of very well-regarded albums. Vagabond shows…
The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
It’s easy, at first glance, to critique James McBride’s award-winning novel as a flippant, perhaps insensitive, retelling of the prelude to the American Civil War. But on closer inspection, The Good Lord Bird is a multifaceted narrative that captivatingly tells…
Mozart Arias by Emma Matthews
In 2009 Australian soprano Emma Matthews released an album simply titled Emma Matthews in Monte Carlo. It was a roaring success so I was excited to hear she was releasing a new recording. Featuring all Mozart arias, this was…
I’d Eat That!: Simple Ways to be a Better Cook by Callum Hann
Callum Hann is that 20-year old sweetheart who came second in the second series of Masterchef and I’d Eat That! is his second cookbook, which he was motivated to write after watching his friends’ appalling eating habits. I don’t know…
Extended Circle by Tord Gustavsen Quartet
The superstar Norwegian pianist’s sixth album marks the completion of a ‘double circle’ of trilogies: the first with the trio, heard on Changing Places, The Ground and Being There, and the second with the quartet, heard on the…
& Sons
David Gilbert’s second novel, & Sons, begins with a funeral. Charlie Topping, father of the book’s narrator Phillip Topping, has died. New York’s elite have turned out to witness the ceremony, many just to catch a glimpse of the…
The Open Ocean by Francesco Pittau & Bernadette Gervais
If you are unaware of this series you are in for a treat. (The previous titles are the gorgeous Out of Sight and Birds of a Feather.) Innovative, surprising and informative they are a visual trove that will captivate…
Concerts Bregenz Munchen by Keith Jarrett
This is 150 minutes of Keith Jarrett at the absolute apex of his solo powers. On the heels of the colossal Sun Bear Concerts, released as a ten-LP set (six CDs in modern parlance) in 1981, Jarrett and his…
No End by Keith Jarrett
No End consists of home recordings Jarrett made in 1986. What makes it (almost) unique, among his vast canon, is that for the most part, Jarrett plays drums, percussion, electric bass and guitar. These are non-composed vamps, very similar in…
Quincy Jordan by Jen Storer
One of the things I recall about being an avid pre-teen reader was my love of Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High books, that widely criticised series – soap opera in book form – that nobody approved of apart from the…
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