Books
Chair: Suzi Feay
Secretary: Lucy Popescu
Ordinary: Phillip Bergson
The Books section was formed in the Circle’s centenary 2013 and now has 39 members. In the first year, the Books section held an open meeting for all members of the Circle to attend an address by the author Sir Barney White Spunner KCB CBE at the Liberal Club. Other talks and events are planned.
News & Reviews
Dame Janet Baker wins Critics’ Circle award for Distinguished Service to the Arts
One of the greatest living stars of British classical music, the mezzo-soprano Dame Janet Baker CH DBE, was voted the winner of the 2019 Critics' Circle Rosebowl by the 500 members of the Circle. Regrettably both the announcement and the award have been delayed by the...
read more
Book Review – Homeland Elegies by Ayad Akhtar
In Ayad Akhtar’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Disgraced, his principle character, Amir, a Pakistani-American lawyer, admits feeling a “blush of pride” at 9/11. Akhtar was exploring the crisis of identity felt by many Muslim-Americans in the wake of the terror...
read more
Hockney dispels Shadows
On 3rd October 2018, Britain's foremost artist David Hockney received the Critics' Circle award for Distinguished Service to Art. The relaxed ceremony took place over lunch at the Chelsea Arts Club, London, a beautiful venue with access through long french windows...
read more
My Cat Yugoslavia: Review
Review by Lucy Popescu, Secretary of the Books Section My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci Translated from the Finnish by David Hackston Pushkin Press Pajtim Statovci’s remarkable debut novel is a poignant examination of the migrant-refugee experience spanning...
read more
Self & I by Matthew De Abaitua
AT the age of 22 Matthew De Abaitua worked for six months as amanuensis to the writer Will Self. It was the mid-1990s and Abaitua was studying for an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. Self was the bad-boy author of a novella, Cock and...
read more
The Optickal Illusion by Rachel Halliburton
Published by Duckworth Overlook at £16.99, 382 pages There is no question that the most hyped first novel of 2018 is Mrs Hancock and the Mermaid by Imogen Hermes Gowar. While that historical novel is undoubtedly a fine work by a prodigious new talent, a strong case...
read more
David Hockney wins critics’ circle award
Services to the Arts
Recipients of the Critics' Circle Annual Award 1988 – Sir Peter Hall 1989 – Dame Ninette de Valois 1990 – Sir Michael Tippett 1991 – Sir David Lean 1992 – Sir John Mills 1993 – Sir Peter Ustinov 1994 – Sir John Drummond 1995 – Sir Peter Wright 1996 – Richard Eyre 1997...
read more