WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Liberating cities from corporate rule
STEVEN ANDREW recommends a book that is a superb example of what has come to be known as engaged urbanism
SPECTACULAR WELFARE OASIS: The Wohnpark Alterlaa social housing estate in Vienna, designed by Harry Gluck has, among other amenities, indoor and rooftop swimming pools
[(L to R) Viennaphotographer/CC and (pool) Thomas Ledl/CC] 
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
Restorative Cities: Urban Design for Mental Health and Wellbeing
by Jenny Roe and Layla Mc Cay
Bloomsbury £28.46
INTEREST in mental illness has grown exponentially over recent years and informs many a popular and undoubtedly progressive analysis. However, there is a noticeable gap between awareness of the devastation that such illness can bring on the one hand and insight into its origins and how it can best be tackled on the other.
Attention on origins still tends to focus on the bio-medical model which highlights genetics and physiology, emphasis in recovery being upon medication and the individual’s ability or not to engage with health services offered.
The idea that there might be a whole political and economic basis to mental ill health and that there is a consequent need to create collective problems to social problems being very rarely discussed.
More from this author
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes a fine introduction to FC United of Manchester, the team set up in opposition to Manchester United
STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism
STEVEN ANDREW has reservations about the political slant of an otherwise indispensable guide to life in the Soviet Union
