MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films
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Breaking the circle
NICK WRIGHT recommends a biography of the anti-fascist who passed secrets to the Soviets which challenges conventional accounts
CRITICAL JUNCTURE : John Cairncross’s information proved crucial to Soviet forces (pictured) at the Balttle of Kursk
STEVE JOHNSON picks his favourites from the many memorable albums of the year, and one stunning new festival
SIMON DUFF picks his favourites, from radical African-inspired electronic rhythms to improvisations on the organ
For GORDON PARSONS, a dramatic exploration of the abuse of young men at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre trumps Beckett, a couple of Hamlets and a bracing Candide
From feminist manifestos to exiled lovers to mythic islands, LEO BOIX selects the best fiction, poetry and non-fiction
FIONA O’CONNOR picks books and films that show defiance in the face of violence and injustice
Agent Moliere: The Life of John Cairncross, the Fifth Man of the Cambridge Spy Circle
by Geoff Andrews
(Bloomsbury, £20)
THE ANTI-FASCIST endeavours of the bourgeois spies for the Comintern — the Communist International — before, during and after the second world war continue to grip the imagination.
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RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
NICK WRIGHT delicately unpicks the eloquent writings on art of an intellectual pessimist who wears his Marxism lightly
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year