WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Vanilla: A global history
Evocative account of a plant valued in nearly every culture for ts aroma and taste
HUGELY PROLIFIC: Vanilla
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
ROSA ABREU-RUNKEL’S Vanilla is anything but — if that word is taken to mean bland or predictable.
Her book tells the story of 500 hundred years of mercantile and capitalist innovation and exploitation through the
cultivation and consumption of the cured, dried and conditioned beans of the vanilla planifolia plant, part of the orchid family.
More from this author
An absorbing metaphor for contemporary Western societies is recommended by PAUL SIMON
PAUL SIMON falls under the spell of little known authors from an island at the edge of the world
