John Williams

augustus

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A special edition of the literary classic

Stoner

Nothing But the Night

Now a Major Film

Butcher's Crossing

Augustus

Weir’s sympathetic and detailed biography reassesses the life of a woman whose role in public life…has been underrated by historians

The finest historical novel ever written by an American

It would be easy to over-praise this novel; but there does not seem any adequate reason why this temptation should be resisted

A novel of extraordinary range, yet of extraordinary minuteness, that manages never to sacrifice one quality for the other

Williams has fashioned an always engaging, psychologically convincing work of fiction - a consistent and well-realized portrait

A highly imaginative account of the life and times of Augustus-a brilliant novel

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.

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

There could be no better year than 2014 to rediscover this one

A Novel

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.

'Williams has fashioned an always engaging, psychologically convincing work of fiction-a consistent and well-realized portrait' The New Yorker

BY THE AUTHOR OF STONER, THE SURPRISE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER: 
 
Colum McCann once called Stoner one of the great forgotten novels of the past century, but it seems it is forgotten no longer – in 2013 translations of Stoner began appearing on bestseller lists across Europe. Forty-eight years after its first, quiet publication in the US, Stoner is finally finding the wide and devoted readership it deserves. Have you read it yet? 
 
'A beautiful, sad, utterly convincing account of an entire life… I’m amazed a novel this good escaped general attention for so long' Ian McEwan 
 
'A terrific novel of echoing sadness' Julian Barnes 
 
'Stoner is a brilliant, beautiful, inexorably sad, wise, and elegant novel' Nick Hornby, The Believer 
 
'I have read few novels as deep and as clear as John Williams' Stoner. It deserves to be called a quiet classic of American literature' Chad Harbach, author of The Art of Fielding 
 
'So beautifully paced and cadenced that it deserves the status of classic' Colum McCann, Guardian 
 
'A beautiful and moving novel, as sweeping, intimate and mysterious as life itself' Geoff Dyer

John Williams was an author, editor and professor. Born in 1922 in Texas, he served in the United States Army Air Force from 1942 to 1945 in China, Burma and India. His first novel, Nothing But the Night, was published in 1948. After receiving his PhD in 1954, Williams returned to the University of Denver where he first studied to teach literature and creative writing for thirty years. It was during this time that he wrote the novels Butcher's Crossing (1960) and Stoner (1965). His last novel, Augustus, won the National Book Award in 1973. John Williams died in Arkansas in 1994.

Augustus

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