CATHERINE STEEL relishes a compelling novel about Augustus’s right hand man, but misses the politics, the cultural shifts, and more detail about his restoration of Rome
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A surprisingly satisfying read
TONY BURKE speaks to JOEL McIVER, co-author of the biography of bluesman John Mayall
A misfit couple unhappily ever after, a dead man walking, dodgy journos, and trench art trucking
New releases from Javon Jackson, IZE Trio, and Mal Waldron Trio
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an intriguing multi-layered depiction, dominated by a stunning impersonation of Marilyn herself
EWAN CAMERON marvels at the impossible ambition, realised with dreamlike finesse of translating Italo Calvino to the stage
Barnhill
by Norman Bissell
Luath Press, £12.99
THIS partly factual and partly reimagined account of George Orwell’s final years is a surprisingly satisfying read for those of us who are the inheritors of his slurs against so-called “Stalinists.”
There are imagined conversations between Orwell and various intimates, self-justifying accounts from his second wife Sonia Brownell and excerpts from some of his letters and novels.
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HENRY BELL salutes a fine portrait of a revolutionary who remains a deeply significant and provocative figure
FIONA O’CONNOR questions the achievement of this year’s Orwell prize winner for political fiction
JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book