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
The Death of Truth
by Michiko Kakutani
(William Collins, £10)
WHEN Michiko Kakutani retired as chief book critic for the New York Times last year, novelists breathed a united sigh of relief. Since leaving her post, she has turned her eye to the US of Donald Trump’s America and produced this slight and histrionically titled polemic.
Her book is a totemic example of the US liberal intelligentsia’s take on Trump exceptionalism — his uncouth manner, untrammelled bellicosity and general cavalier attitude towards policy are seen as beyond the pale.
Renewed illusions in social democratic reformism are sprouting as a result of Andy Burnham’s rhetoric, but material conditions are already intruding into the debate, argues NICK WRIGHT
JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist
ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher



