JOHN HAWKINS wrestles with the anti-humanist fantasies of techno-feudalist thinking

With reservations, RON JACOBS recommends a deep dive into the nature, history, and mindset of US intelligence

TOM STONE checks the political coordinates of a festival where the pleasures of nostalgia were (sometimes) harnessed to a new message 

by Josie Giles

SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong

ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs

BOB NEWLAND doubts the political credentials, but praises the description of the impossible bind of a UN mediator in Libya in the era of Trump

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review 2000 Meters to Andriivka, Savages, The Legend of Ochi, and The Naked Gun

ANGUS REID is bowled over by a cinematic masterpiece that examines the labour of nursing in forensic, dramatic detail

by Yvonne Reddick

GORDON PARSONS advises you to get up to speed on obscure ancient ceremonies to grasp this interpretation of a late Shakespearean tragi-comedy

STEVE JOHNSON speaks to DJ and singer/songwriter Mark Radcliffe

JAMES WALSH takes advantage of an evening of comedy snippets to pick out which clowns will make it in Edinburgh

DENNIS BROE enjoys the political edge of a series that unmasks British imperialism, resonates with the present and has been buried by Disney

MAYER WAKEFIELD is swept up by the tale of the south London venue where music forged alliances across race, class and identity

FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family

New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi

WILL STONE relishes the chance to hear the Isle of Wight indie sensation in an intimate setting

MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge

PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery

Paul MacGee of Manifesto Press invites you to a special launch on Saturday August 2.

A deadly epidemic has led to martial law. Behind boarded-up windows — in a house haunted by abduction, hunger and fragmented memories — a shred of desperate hope remains.  

Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses

WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne

JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR

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

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

MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Zero, Bring Her Back, Gazer, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps

MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family

CHRIS SEARLE speaks to vocalist Jacqui Dankworth

by Matt Duggan

LAUDAN NOOSHIN praises the Design and Disability exhibition at the V&A

LEO BOIX reviews a caustic novel of resistance and womanhood by Buenos Aires-born Lucia Lijtmaer, and an electrifying poetry collection by Chilean Vicente Huidobro

NICK MATTHEWS welcomes the return of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music to the repertoire of this years’ Three Choirs Festival

MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s dissection of William Blake

New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell