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ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MARIA DUARTE review On The Sea, A Useful Ghost, Brunello: The Gracious Visionary, and Pinocchio Unstrung
Round-up 2016: Poetry
Andy Croft hosts some of Britain’s leading poets as they review the collections which have made a big impression on them this year
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
• JOHN BURNSIDE
A FINE year for British poetry, with excellent collections from three poets who have, perhaps, not been consistently accorded all the praise they deserve.
Bernard O’Donoghue, a veteran poet of craft, deftness and quiet elegance, is on top form in The Seasons of Cullen Church (Faber), while Ian Duhig, another true original and, arguably, one of the most formally astute poets working today, delights, moves and astonishes with The Blind Road-Maker (Picador).
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