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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Persuasive path to class consciousness
PAUL SIMON recommends James Clarke's novel, set in the middle of the miners' strike of 1984-5
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
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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
The Litten Path
by James Clarke
(Salt, £9.99)
FRAMED by a sequence of betrayals, The Litten Path is a story of unequal class struggle.
The geographical co-ordinates of the novel are tightly drawn — the Yorkshire mining village of Litten, the semi-derelict Threndle House on its outskirts and the Orgreave coking plant.
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The book feels like a writer working within his limits and not breaking any new ground, believes KEN COCKBURN