WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Brecht in all his greatness
The publication of the collected poems of Bertolt Brecht in English is cause for celebration, says ANDY CROFT
Wise, sad, defeated, defiant: Bertolt Brecht
[Jorg Kolbe/Wikipedia] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
NOT many poets’ reputations can survive the publication of their entire life’s work in a single breezeblock volume.
Even the best can seem repetitious and their finest work diminished alongside weak, juvenile or unfinished poems. Among 20th-century poets, there are only a few who may be said to pass this test and all were communists – Louis Aragon, Pablo Neruda, Nazim Hikmet, Yiannis Ritsos and Bertolt Brecht.
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