WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
A convoluted ‘shaggy dog story’
A book that will be relished by those who can’t wait for another socialist nightmare story, suggests JOHN GREEN
TORTURE BY POETRY’: GROMA Kolibri typewriter, Made in East Germany, c1956
[Pic: Sommeregger and Stasi logo jgaray both Creative Commons] 
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
The Stasi Poetry Circle: The Creative Writing Class that Tried to Win the Cold War
By Philip Oltermann
Faber & Faber £14.99
PHILIP OLTERMANN is the Guardian’s German correspondent and is clearly keen to jump aboard the gravy train of Stasi horror stories. In discussing this latest “Stasi revelation” book, it is difficult to know where to start in terms of trying to discover factual nuggets buried beneath the huge slagheap of fabulation.
In researching his book, Oltermann takes the easy seam, already well mined by his forerunners. He plunders the “Stasi Archives” to investigate the story behind a poetry circle set up by members of the GDR’s Ministry of State Security (MfS) or, in Western jargon, “the Stasi.”
More from this author
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
JOHN GREEN is stirred by an ambitious art project that explores solidarity and the shared memory of occupation
JOHN GREEN applauds an excellent and accessible demonstration that the capitalist economy is the biggest threat to our existence
JOHN GREEN isn’t helped by the utopian fantasy of a New York Times bestseller that ignores class struggle and blames the so-called ’progressives’
