I have just read Karl Galinsky's Augustus. An introduction to the life of an emperor, released by Cambridge University Press earlier this year. The subject is a vast one - something of which I am constantly reminded as I work on my own biography of Rome's first emperor. Augustus lived so long and did so much that any biographer has to deal with a great many different subjects. For many the evidence is poor, and on top of that the man himself remains a mystery. It always seems appropriate that he chose the enigmatic sphinx as one of his seals - only one though, because Augustus was never easy to pin down in any aspect of life. After all this is a man born in September, who nevertheless chose the Capricorn as his symbol. This is one of many curiosities explored in a text box, Like so many other aspects of Augustus' life, it defies an easy answer. Galinsky reviews the evidence with skill and perception, and most importantly admits that there are many gaps in our sources which makes certainty impossible on many issues, both great and small.

This is a slim volume. I have four or five times the space for my own biography of the first emperor and know that I will have to leave out a huge amount of material. This makes it all the more impressive just how much Galinsky crams into less than two hundred pages. There are plenty of illustrations and maps. Students starting a course on the wider period or Augustus in particular will find this invaluable. Anyone else with an interest in the theme, or who simply wants to gain a glimpse of such a remarkable and important historical figure, can do no better than to start with this short book.

The subtitle of Carole Divall's new book Napoleonic Lives: Researching the British soldiers of the Napoleonic Wars tells you its main purpose. It is a detailed guide of how to find out information from all the different archives and museum collections written by someone who has spent a lot of time delving into these sources. I know a lot of people who are very keen to build up a detailed family trees and this is certainly the book for you. I would also heartily recommend it if you simply have an interest in the army of this period. Chapters cover different individuals from a range of regiments, including a man from the 69th who served on board ship as a marine, to cavalrymen and gunners. There is a also a chapter focusing on two army wives - Biddy Skiddy who is depicted so vividly in George Bell's Memoirs (& in a display in London's National Army Museum, showing her carrying her husband on her back when he was exhausted, and the lesser known Agnes Reston, a sergeant's wife who is described by Donaldson of the 94th in an episode I may one day incorporate into one of the novels.

I have always found the letters and memoirs of this period fascinating, and writing the novels has given me a good excuse to go back to them and look in much greater detail. This meant that reading the book was often a very nice reminder of some of the characters from these, both the authors and the people who figured in their stories. Even more fascinating is the comparison between the stories and the official archives - finding out more for instance about some of the famous writers such as Wheeler of the 51st. Sometimes these hint at fascinating little stories. So Sergeant Nicolson of the 42nd Highlanders, who served in Egypt, was left behind in Portugal when his battalion marched with Sir John Moore into Spain and the next year found himself serving in a Battalion of Detachments at Oporto and Talavera, figures in one of the chapters. Less famous than other memoirs, it is a vivid account, and especially interesting since he describes being left among the wounded when the army retired and his subsequent capture by the French. The introduction to his published memoirs state that he ran away from home and joined the army at the age of 15. However, his discharge papers state that he enlisted at the age of 20. Divall notes that the 1851 census confirms the age claimed in the memoirs, and make it likely that the lad added five years when he joined the army - something so familiar from the First World War.

As a research tool this is a great guide, but it is also a really good read in its own right. Beat the Drums Slowly is dedicated jointly to my editor and to Carole, who has been kind enough to read each manuscript and has stopped me from making mistakes when talking about regimental life. This book, and her others, are marvellous for these human, everyday stories of the period, and are heartily recommended. You can find more detail at her website

Over the winter I also came across Alexander Baron's From the city, from the plough about a fictional battalion of British infantry before and during D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. The author served in the army at the time and this shows throughout the book, although given his background it is unsurprising that the Londoners come across more convincingly than the country lads mixed in with them. It's a warts and all portrait. One officer is dangerously reckless and eventually shot by his own men. An old sweat appears who works the system for his own benefit. Yet on the whole it is more about the courage of the mixed bag of citizen soldiers, and the price they paid during the invasion. It's odd, but not too many modern authors can create a convincing picture of the 1940s. It almost seems harder to do this than to write about the distant past, probably because that is so distant that we don't know what it was really like. I had heard of this book for years, but this was the first time I saw a copy and I would heartily recommend it.

Another novel ringing with authenticity because the author was there is Geoffrey Powell's Men at Arnhem. I am not sure whether or not this is in print, but I recently came across a copy I bought years and years ago and re-read it with great pleasure. Once again it gives a vivid portrait of that generation and the way the British army worked.