The Observer New Review

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[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Tellus – Dickson Mbi’s shapes of water

The London choreographer explores his Cameroonian roots through the figure of the goddess Mami Water in a beautiful but blurred work

https://t.co/4DlVDA7gRG

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

A hazy history of the modern Middle East

Simon Sebag Montefiore sacrifices too much nuance in his ambitious but orthodox chronicle

✍️ @msrmichaelson
https://t.co/F9tAcdeK9h

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

The gloves are off: the rise of bareknuckle boxing

It’s selling out arenas as the UK’s fastest-growing combat sport. Heavyweight champion Mick Terrill explains what makes someone want to step in the ring without gloves

✍️ @andrewhankinson
https://t.co/VEUolwsQd7

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

What to read to understand sculpture

Three books that explore the origins and inspirations of the art form, both human-made and in the world around us

✍️ @jobaringart
https://t.co/zQArNfxtSl

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Wendy Ide’s pick of other films: Wildwood, Clayface, Possible Love and more

A stop-motion fantasy epic from the creators of Coraline is an extraordinary achievement

✍️ @WendyIde
https://t.co/O4yQ25LJdI

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Poetry books of the month: bullets and blooms

Ian McMillan’s winningly absurdist Red River Valley goes to war with Wordsworth’s daffodils, while Jason B Crawford tackles violence and injustice in his urgent second collection YEET!

✍️ @JadeCuttle
https://t.co/8hnV8DgJtZ

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Those rumours of the death of programmers? Greatly exaggerated

AI agents may be solving the tricky puzzles software engineers used to love, but human understanding of coding is still essential

✍️ @jjn1
https://t.co/P7S3sPZzh4

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Jon Fosse welcomes you to the Vaim Hotel

The second instalment in the Norwegian author’s Vaim trilogy is a Kafkaesque farce about a hotel guest perplexed by his very presence in a strange fishing village

✍️ @chris_power
https://t.co/4asqiPoBtw

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

How Robert Ryman became the master of white

The Barbican’s exhilarating retrospective explodes the myth that the American artist painted only plain canvases – and reveals the many multitudes contained within

✍️ @LauraCummingArt
https://t.co/C4wydtyOiW

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Nobody Wants This – over the hot rabbi? Fall in love with the hot sister instead

Justine Lupe excels in season three of the LA-set sitcom, which is as watchable as ever despite its sugary excesses.

✍️ Barbara Ellen
https://t.co/xJJSsSMtbD

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

The big picture: making a scene in Abuja

Photographer Paul Abbah has his subject ‘exaggerate everything’ in the harmattan dust of Nigeria’s capital

✍️ @killianfox0
https://t.co/RYrHXxVhCe

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

We may have passed peak manosphere. But what’s next for men?

The decline of the hyper-masculine and misogynistic movement led by Andrew Tate frees the male character to reinvent itself

✍️ Geoff Dyer
https://t.co/1JfHTnkA4m

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

From father to son: what our dads taught us

Writers share the life lessons they learned from the men who raised them

✍️ Luke Kennard, @colincraiggrant, @MichaelRosenYes, Raymond Antrobus, Andrew Anthony, Will Harris, Mark Haddon, Frank Cottrell-Boyce
https://t.co/Q4m15kuxZT

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Rent – Gaten Matarazzo leads a sparky revival for a new Generation Rent

Boasting infectious performances from a superb cast, Jonathan Larson’s cult classic still more than pays its way

✍️ @cowleskatherine
https://t.co/QYUfgfll1Z

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Fatherland – Sandra Hüller reckons with Germany’s ghosts in Thomas Mann biopic

Paweł Pawlikowski’s elegant, austere portrait of the exiled author’s return to Germany is anchored by a quietly commanding turn by the actor playing his daughter

✍️ @wendyide
https://t.co/dHyN6cCSs9

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Mothers of Kherson – a brave, blistering opera for Ukraine’s stolen children

In Warsaw, the world premiere of an urgent new opera about Russia’s unlawful wartime abductions gets a 20-minute standing ovation

✍️ @FionaMaddocks
https://t.co/BVOejzq7Ct

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

The riddle of JRR Tolkien

Conservative and radical, civilised and wild – the great fantasy novelist was a living conundrum. In The King Under the Mountain, DJ Taylor seeks to unpick his legend

✍️ @TanyaGold1
https://t.co/G91JIdvPxq

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Tove Jansson, from Moominvalley to Middle-earth

Billed as ‘the children’s book of the century’ in 1962, the Moomins creator’s illustrated version of The Hobbit is finally reaching English readers

✍️ Daisy Lynch
https://t.co/SV2a6kEr5H

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

The shaming of Britain’s slavery profiteers

The historian William A Pettigrew spent five years identifying the merchants, investors and adventurers who grew rich from the barbaric transatlantic slave trade

✍️ Ian Thomson
https://t.co/v3UZC6vTjh

[The Observer New Review @ObsNewReview]

Jacqueline Rose: ‘Like Freud, I am a godless Jew’

The philosopher on misunderstood women, the problem with empathy, and the challenge of honouring her late sister

✍️ Lily Isaacs
https://t.co/Tgm9iMw4xs