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GORDON PARSONS recommends an entertaining account of the years between Germany’s defeat in WWI and Hitler’s seizure of power
Resisting the temptation of silence
21st century poetry with Andy Croft
MIGUEL YOSHIDA explains the evolution and influence of the Cuban Casa De Las Americas in joining culture to the revolutionary struggle
ANDY HEDGECOCK is charmed by a skilful adaptation of Tove Jansson’s lyrical portrait of three generations of a family, overcoming grief
ALEX HALL treads warily through a messy, dialectical struggle fought in the mundane machinery of driving licences, criminal law, and birth registries
MICHAL BONCZA, FIONA O’CONNOR, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Atlas of Disappearance, Love Me Tender, Bouchra, and This Tempting Madness
Flitting between myth and the modern world, Medusa is determined to steer clear of human affairs. When her resolve crumbles, the result is petrifying in every sense
THERE is an early poem in Hans Magnus Enzensberger: New Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, £15) in which he explains why poets “do not tell the truth”:
“Because the thirsty man/does not give mouth to his thirst./Because proletariat is a word/which will not pass the lips of the proletariat... Because it is someone else,/always someone else,/who does the talking,/and because he/who is being talked about,/keeps his silence.”
It’s an issue to which Enzensberger has repeatedly returned — how do you use language to talk about things? How do you use words to tell the truth about language? How, in a noisy world, do you resist the temptations of silence?
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RON JACOBS is enthralled by Roberto Saviano’s portrait of heroes and deplorables, that calls for people to stand up for themselves and the things they believe in
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