ALAN Hollinghurst has won this year's Man Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty, about Thatcherism and gay sex. The former teacher from Stroud, in Gloucestershire, who now lives in London, scooped the £50,000 award at a ceremony last week, beating the hot favourite, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.

FANS of Asterix the Gaul will be pleased to know that Orion is continuing the republication of the 24 core titles with the 13th and 14th books in the series, Asterix and the Cauldron and Asterix in Spain. Written by Rene Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Udezo, the books are beautifully re-inked, re-coloured and redesigned and cost £9.99 each.

AT the time of his death in 2000, Patrick O'Brian had begun to write a novel to follow on from Blue at the Mizzen. In The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (HarperCollins, £18.99) the chapters are presented both in printed version and a facsimilie of his manuscript. Die-hard fans of the master of seafaring novels would no doubt rather have had the whole story. Here instead is proof that O'Brian's powers of observation were undiminished to the end.

Published: 26/10/2004