“... on Canvey, a suburban island. The protagonist, Wesley, is either the leader or the target of what may or may not be a cult, depending on how you read things. He sleeps rough, eats gulls, makes his own shaving foam, and is pursued by between two and a dozen stalkers, whom he calls the Behindlings. They are people whose lives ...”

“... Conservative precepts. The private sector knows, and grows, best. The City is untouchable: it may be chastised, but never seriously confronted. Unemployment is a form of dependency, best dealt with through market discipline. Competition is the law of all social and economic life, and it is the role of the state to encourage it and to secure public ...”

“... the Israeli word not just for the Palestinians but for the Arabs as a whole – may have the last laugh. Not only did Hamas put up a better fight than it had in the last war, it averted an Israeli ground offensive, won implicit recognition as a legitimate actor from the United States (which helped to broker the talks in Cairo), and achieved ...”

“... when he was trying to finish A Passage to India). The verses are trivial but the need for them may seem urgent if one considers the emotional demands that inspired a now celebrated diary entry of 1935: ‘I want to love a strong young man of the lower classes and be loved by him and even hurt by him. That is my ticket.’ This is a mood to be remembered ...”

“... who lives upstairs, who is called Maya or perhaps Moira. She plays the piano heartbreakingly, and may be the daughter of a judge; she sleeps with strangers in the park and writes him letters on pink paper telling him she has slashed her wrists. In one of the letters she signs herself Chiang Ching; she might be Chinese. Fritz considers nailing his hand to his ...”

“... from Ben Jonson to Martin Amis, normally disapprove of such sentences; but aposiopesis may be allowed as a structural feature, as when Yeats ends his ‘In Memory of Major Robert Gregory’ by claiming that he cannot continue his roll call of Gregory’s friends because ‘a thought/Of that late death took all my heart for speech.’ We ...”

“... Within a year or two, suitcase-sized nuclear weapons (crafted in Pakistan or North Korea) may be commercially available. Eager customers will include not only rich playboys like Osama bin Laden but also the leaders of various irredentist movements that have metamorphosed into well-financed criminal gangs. Once such weapons are used in Europe, whatever ...”

“... not the final answer, after all. If someone else is found to have taken Madeleine McCann – as may well be the case – it will show that the ordinary life of an ordinary family cannot survive the suspicious scrutiny of millions. In one – completely unverified – account of her interrogation, Kate McCann is said to have responded to the accusation that ...”

“... turn of the screw, there is the narrator’s own mistress, who is close to his father in age and may be willing to keep the older man company in his son’s bed. These scenes are heartbreaking, crude, funny, despairing. In the end it is the father who keeps his dignity and the son who loses his, just as it is the son who vomits up his booze, not the ...”

“... areas to build positions for artillery, rocket launchers and tanks. Despite their efforts, on 20 May 2015 Islamic State fighters took the modern town and the ancient site. Their first target was Tadmur Prison. Within days they made a show of freeing the last captives and released a video of the foul interior. On 30 ...”

“... actions and reactions is insistently framed by the word, the ideals it evokes, the way it may be mocked or exploited, and the question of whether virtue resides in character or is only realised through what someone does or doesn’t do.This moral uncertainty extends into Virgil’s handling of some of the foundational tales of Roman history. When ...”

“... another can be the crux of litigation on which billions are at stake. For this reason, inflation may be the UK’s most controversial national statistic. It’s certainly the most consequential. It moves markets and it determines monetary policy: it moves markets because it determines monetary policy. But none of that is a price collector’s immediate ...”

“... trilby. Harbourside deer. Memories occupy my mind like bright lights in an urban void: symbols you may not understand when I report them; yet a word in earnest may at times transcend ... Thousands of miles from you, I slip my clothes off. Bed-lamp lit, these sheets look fresh as a new envelope. I’ll turn the hot tap till ...”

“... and his nagging wife – We keep the templates safe in our bank vaults. But as I write this down I may uncover That ring of majesty I know is stored In words, and by retrieving it I may Dredge cool epillia from the image-hoard – Thus while each word remains I will discover The source from which the magic rays are sent And ...”

“... distinguish a message made of logs: ‘Return to the frontier or all is lost, though in time some may reap the benefit and glory of a frozen attitude.’ My mind was made up. We would start for Illinois that very day. Have you considered firecrackers? The deft music contained therein assuages all contenders. Those who arrive last at the party receive the most ...”