WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Why curry is no longer an alien import
The relationship between Britain and India is made accessible and entertaining through the lens of a personal story, says PAUL DONOVAN
FIGHTING RACISM: Trafalgar Square, London, April 1978
[Sarah Wyld/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
Thank You Mr Crombie – Lessons in Guilt and Gratitude to the British
Mihir Bose
Hurst, £25
JOURNALIST Mihir Bose has produced a fascinating book chronicling his life: growing up in India, then moving to Britain, where he eventually works his way into journalism.
The title, Thank You Mr Crombie, refers to a letter Bose wrote some years later thanking the civil servant, John Crombie, who confirmed his permanent right to remain in Britain in 1975.
The great attraction of the book is the many avenues it travels down. These include the world of being brought up in a traditional Hindu family, in post-independence India. Then, the changing face of Britain that the young Bose encounters in the 1960s and early ’70s, a world that changes in the second half of the 1970s, as racist attitudes harden, with the National Front on the streets. Bose encounters racism from football supporters, as well as landlords — turning him away from renting rooms due to the colour of his skin.
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