IN his 29th novel, Indignation (Jonathan Cape, £16.99), Philip Roth delivers a short but rewardingly sharp read.

The familiar young Jewish central character takes the form of bookish only child, Marcus. At the outbreak of the Korean War, Marcus flees his anxious father and the family butcher shop in Newark for a conservative Mid-West college.

Studying hard, with a part-time job, Marcus struggles to make friends and fumbles sexually like an adolescent.

But he’s living right, he thinks, so why won’t his parents, the dean and the other students leave him alone? Inevitably, Roth begins to turn the screw and Marcus’s world seems to conspires against him.

The read is as excruciating as it is enjoyable. Marcus’s indignant rage turns life’s stumbles and troubles into a painful downfall.

This long novella has a narrow premise and a £16.99 price tag, but it’s still unmistakably the work of a master.

(Review by Jack Doyle)

One Morning Like a Bird by Andrew Miller is published in hardback by Sceptre, priced £16.99.

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the story follows Yuji Takano – a young man trapped in the crossroad of life.

Burdened with health problems, he has been spared becoming a Japanese soldier as the war against China escalates.

His surrounding network begins to diminish: a reclusive mother, a disgraced father and an end to the allowance he has come to rely on.

Although eloquently written, the story feels slow to begin with. Descriptions are poetic and comprehensive in detail, highlighting the author’s love and knowledge of his chosen subject and area.

This, however, causes the reader confusion when trying to identify the true motivation of the character and who essentially has a role in the drama.

However, is this not what growing up is all about?

(Review by Jane Thompson)

Among new non-fiction books is Arnhem: Jumping the Rhine 1944 and 1945 – The Greatest Airborne Battle In History by Lloyd Clark, published in hardback by Headline Review, priced £20.

The Battle of Arnhem – codenamed Operation Market Garden – in September 1944 remains one of the most controversial episodes of the Second World War.

Despite heroic efforts, airborne Allied troops failed to secure the bridge at Arnhem in Nazi-occupied Holland and enable an Allied crossing across the Rhine into Germany. Thousands of the servicemen were killed, injured or taken prisoner.

Serious errors of judgement had occurred at the highest level and, despite subsequent attempts by military and political leaders to whitewash the failure into a “near victory”, the general impression remains that it was a badlyplanned operation that should never have taken place.

Author Lloyd Clark, a senior lecturer in war studies at Sandhurst, is gentler and believes that it was a risk worth taking.

His book is well-stocked with dramatic personal accounts and much military detail.