Unchain Me review – Dostoevsky inspires secret mission on the streets of Brighton
dreamthinkspeak’s timely new production on inequality and abuse of political power offers its audience a choice: complicity or compliance?
December 2021
Book of the day
The Sinner and the Saint by Kevin Birmingham review – a dazzling literary detective story
How could Dostoevsky get inside the mind of a murderer to create a work of such ferocious fiction as Crime and Punishment?
November 2021
The Sinner and the Saint review – the story behind Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
Kevin Birmingham’s clear and gripping new study of the Russian writer digs deep into the inspiration for Raskolnikov
July 2021
White Nights review – masterly staging of Dostoevsky’s unrequited love story
Brian Ferguson performs with mesmerising verve in this poignant, desperately funny portrait of existential misery
April 2021
Top 10s
Top 10 books about revenge
From Alexandre Dumas to Ian McEwan, writers serve up a dish that’s best prepared only in imagination
January 2021
Dostoevsky in Love by Alex Christofi review – unpredictable, dangerous and thrilling
His marriages were disastrous but his words were so rousing they made strangers embrace ... a superb study of the Russian novelist
November 2020
'It had been on my shelf for years': readers share their lockdown reads
Publishers report that coronavirus has boosted sales of long, classic novels. You reveal the great baggy monsters you’ve found the time to tackle
September 2020
Country diary
Country diary: art imitates nature to reveal the delicate beauty of moths
Kestle Barton, Helston, Cornwall: Sarah Gillespie’s print exhibition captures the mystery of moths and on the day of our visit we are graced by a live specimen of spectacular colours
November 2019
Top 10s
From Alice in Wonderland to the Hitchhiker's Guide: top 10 books about mathematics
From Lewis Carroll to Douglas Adams and even Dostoevsky, the imaginative possibilities of numbers have animated some dazzling fiction
March 2019
The Idiot review – Dostoevsky's good prince makes a quivering retreat from love
Top 10s
Top 10 toxic families in fiction
November 2018
Dostoevsky book among hundreds banned in Kuwait
Information ministry blacklists The Brothers Karamazov and other titles at book festival
September 2018
Top 10s
Top 10 real-life monsters in fiction
Bringing the very worst humans – from Joseph Stalin to Idi Amin – to life in novels is a tough call. But it can be done well, if you can bear to read
August 2018
Further reading
It’s all about me: the best books on self-obsession
Solipsistic novels, a study of narcissism, a biography of a Michelin starred chef ... here are some of the best, from Dostoevsky to Karl Ove Knausgaard
April 2018
Top writers choose their perfect crime
Brief letters
Everyone looks at pictures of puppies
March 2018
From the House of the Dead shines a light into darkness
Janáček’s final opera is peopled with aggressive and unpleasant characters, but the beauty of its music speaks powerfully of the need for empathy and understanding, says the conductor of a new production
December 2017
Top 10s
Top 10 novels about God
He doesn’t appear very often in fiction, but in these books – by authors ranging from Fyodor Dostoevsky to John Updike – his impact is almighty
October 2017
Happiness is a salty potato – and other life lessons from Russian literature
Don’t trust a woman who wears too much perfume and know your limits – Viv Groskop on the 10 top tips Chekhov, Tolstoy and others have for us today
August 2017
St Petersburg: Three Centuries of Murderous Desire by Jonathan Miles review – a brilliant history
This political and cultural study of a city built on dreams, and a swamp, expertly distils its blend of high culture and toxic corruption
