Augustus

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

By the author of Stoner, the surprise international bestseller

After the brutal murder of his great-uncle, Julius Caesar, Octavian, a shy and scholarly youth of nineteen, suddenly finds himself heir to the vast power of Rome. He is destined, despite vicious power struggles, bloody wars and family strife, to transform his realm and become the greatest ruler the western world had ever seen: Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor.

Building on impeccable research, John Williams brings the legendary figure of Augustus vividly to life, and invests his characters with such profound humanity that we enter completely into the heat and danger of their lives and times.

©2023 John Williams (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Weir’s sympathetic and detailed biography reassesses the life of a woman whose role in public life…has been underrated by historians
New Statesman
The finest historical novel ever written by an American
Washington Post
It would be easy to over-praise this novel; but there does not seem any adequate reason why this temptation should be resisted
Economist
A novel of extraordinary range, yet of extraordinary minuteness, that manages never to sacrifice one quality for the other
Financial Times
Williams has fashioned an always engaging, psychologically convincing work of fiction - a consistent and well-realized portrait
New Yorker
A highly imaginative account of the life and times of Augustus-a brilliant novel
Library Journal
A brilliant epistolary novel about Octavius Caesar and ancient Rome...all three [of John Williams'] novels show a similar narrative arc: a young man's initiation, vicious male rivalries, subtler tensions between men and women, fathers and daughters, and finally a bleak sense of disappointment, even futility.
New York Times
Exquisite...brims with great lines
Chicago Tribune
A vividly imagined re-creation of classical Rome, but its intuitive grasp of the experience of immense power makes it an unusual, and superior, novel
Boston Globe
There could be no better year than 2014 to rediscover this one
Times Literary Supplement

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