Posts by Sarah Birch
A Child of the East End, Jean Fullerton, book review: ‘Highly entertaining tale of growing up in Stepney’
Fullerton’s memoir will ‘resonate with many’ who lived through the social change of the late 20th-century
Read MoreBacklash, Michael Shew, book review: ‘Fast-paced story with a well-crafted plot’
The Newington Green author impresses with ‘warts-and-all’ characters
Read MoreI Am Not Raymond Wallace, Sam Kenyon, book review: ‘Elegant story of how shared values can both eviscerate and nurture’
In ‘moving prose’, this debut novel explores the life of a gay man burdened by society’s expectations
Read MoreThe Getaway, Ross Armstrong, book review: ‘Summer sizzler with a twisty plot’
Everyone seems to be hiding something in the Hackney-based author’s whodunnit
Read MoreThe Council House, Jack Young, book review: ‘A celebration of the beauty of London estates’
Young’s work is a ‘salutary reminder of the qualitative variety and splendour of so much of our existing stock’
Read MoreAn English Summer, Chanel Irvine, book review: ‘Photos laced with nostalgic detail’
Irvine sees in British summers a ‘lyrical and faintly elegiac quality’
Read MoreThese Streets, Luan Goldie, book review: ‘Unsparing reflection on the dark side of gentrification’
The Hackney author’s third novel is ‘one to put on your summer reading list’
Read MoreMariam, The Old Church, stage review: ‘Stand-out performances carry dialogue-heavy script’
This adaptation of Elizabeth Cary’s 1613 play picks up in the second half
Read MoreMabley Green Class of ’21, Benjamin Hughes, book review: ‘The art of rock-climbing on the plains of Homerton’
The photographer explains how a small community of climbers formed around a rock in a Hackney park
Read MoreJock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook, Royal Academy: ‘Even if you think you know them, these paintings invite you to reflect anew’
The Academy has collected 20 of the Scottish artist’s London artworks to celebrate his 70th birthday
Read MoreUnmasked, Perishable Rush, BSMT Space, exhibition review: ‘Smiles and scars in evocative solo show’
The Dutch street artist has taken his work off walls across Europe for his first UK gallery outing in Dalston
Read MoreDexter McLean: Portraits from Tower Avenue, Jamaica, Autograph, review: ‘Take the time to savour these images’
The photographer’s award-winning series shows the vitality of ‘resilience and resourcefulness’
Read More‘Colourful promise with nothing to back it up’: Artist Simon the Last takes aim at high-tech with light show in an empty shop
Window display in Hoxton featuring over 3,600 LEDs ‘explores the ways in which our material existences have been warped’
Read More‘I wanted to write about women making the city their own’: Author Gemma Seltzer on how the streets of East London influenced her new book
The writer spent the pandemic wandering the capital, and has used the experience to craft a ‘magnetic collection of short stories’
Read MoreNoguchi, Barbican Art Gallery, exhibition review: ‘Blurring the line between representational and abstract’
Major retrospective on the work of Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi is ‘breathtakingly diverse’
Read MoreVictoria Park, Gemma Reeves, book review: ‘Subtle picture of a place that could in some senses be anywhere’
The author’s debut novel uses 12 loosely-connected stories to build a portrait of the area’s complex history
Read MoreAddress Book, Neil Bartlett, book review: ‘A treat for all readers, gay and straight alike’
The author and theatre director’s ‘poignant’ fifth novel explores the gay experience through history
Read MoreThe Roles We Play, Sabba Khan, book review: ‘Laden with paradox and rich in nuance’
This genre-defying volume by an East London architect is a ‘meditation on the collective trauma of immigration’
Read MoreHyangmok Baik: Forgotten By Us, Beers Gallery, exhibition review: ‘The more one looks, the more one sees’
The Korean painter’s solo show is ‘full of colour and off-beat imagery’
Read MoreCommon Ground, Naomi Ishiguro, book review: ‘A modern-day Howards End’
The Stoke Newington novelist’s ‘highly readable’ debut is ‘destined to challenge not a few facile assumptions’
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