ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
Latest editorial
Review of poetry by Latinx writers Carlos Andres Gomez, Eduardo C Corral and Benjamin Garcia
RON JACOBS enjoys a great tale, told by a US communist, of the lives of working-class New Yorkers
BRENT CUTLER searches a new history of contemporary Iran for an understanding of the Islamic Republic, finding both interesting detail and glaring omissions
MARIA DUARTE recommends the true story of the remarkable woman who sued Donald Trump for sexual assault not once, but twice
KENNY MacASKILL is disappointed by a polemical, rather than factual, account of the Lone Star State and its political path since the civil war
PAUL DONOVAN is fascinated by the lives of Charles and Mary Bagot, and the insight this biography shines on the morals of pre-Victorian society
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
CARLOS ANDRES GOMEZ’S new poetry collection Fracture (University of Winsconsin Press, £13), winner of the Felix Pollak prize in poetry is one of the most striking poetry books by a Latinx author being published this year.
It interrogates with devastating precision and clarity Latino men’s beliefs and histories, as well as the cultural heritage and dominant messaging about masculinity.
Gomez also explores the complex issues of race and gender, aspects of fatherhood, filial love and bilingualism within the Latinx community of New York.
Similar stories
DIANE WATT argues that while evidence of sex is not there, a 16th‑century lesbian poet could be Scotland’s answer to Gentleman Jack
From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026