KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
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Robins takes the biscuit
LYNNE WALSH recommends an engaging graphic novel about sisterhood and the city
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
NADIA JOSEPH welcomes a survey of the role that TV played in the debate over apartheid and race relations in Britain
Biscuits (Assorted)
by Jenny Robins
(Myriad Editions, £16.99)
JENNY ROBINS has cooked up the perfect lockdown treat in this award-winning graphic novel. Friendship, between both friends and strangers, is the sweet centre of a book which won the Myriad First Graphic Novel Competition in 2018.
Biscuits (Assorted) is sometimes bitter-sweet but never saccharine. Each woman depicted is authentic and instantly recognisable and individualistic. They do not fit the cookie-cutter stereotype.
There’s Lucy, staying sane in her call-centre job by playing a game of profanity bingo. Her handmade card shows squares citing “Cock” and “Piss off” among the many customer responses to her cold-calling and she leaps up, shouting “BINGO!”, to a complete absence of response from her workmates.
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