Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Winter warmers
ANDY CROFT recommends three uplifting collections to ward off post-festive blues
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
JOHN GOHORRY'S Thirty-three Ostrich Cadenzas (Shoestring, £6) tells the story of the Japanese ostriches who escaped from a farm after the Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdown in Fukushima in 2011.
It begins as a sort of extravagant black comedy. The ostriches take over the deserted town of Okuma, where they drink in bars, mate in bookshops and establish the utopian “Autonomous Ostrich Republic.”
When the “moonsuits” arrive with their Geiger counters, the ostriches are sent to the Tokyo Agricultural University for tests and experiments.
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ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician
PATRICK JONES recommends a vital anthology from Afghan and Iranian poets where the political and personal fuse into witness-bearing and manifesto-making
LEO BOIX selects the best books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction written by Latinx and Latin American authors published this year
MEIC BIRTWHISTLE speaks to David Constantine about the fascination he shares with Brecht for the material exactness of Greek poetry