“... French literary culture precipitated by the anti-colonial struggle in Algeria and by the events of May 1968. As Barthes declared in 1977, these upheavals marked the final demise of the sacrosanct nationalist ‘myth’ of the Great Writer as ‘the sacred depository of all higher values’, and the equally powerful, sometimes rival, universalist ‘myth’ of ...”

“... unreliable narrator on your hands – ‘I have always liked stunts (and also, as you may have guessed, pranks, hoaxes, games)’ – is the literary equivalent of discovering that you have invited a kleptomaniac into your home. In fact the ‘lie’ about filmmaking in upstate New York is close to what really happened, though there wasn’t a ...”

“... their belief that their main job is to protect the settlers, not the population under occupation. David Shulman, a distinguished academic, peace activist and a member of Ta’ayush, an organisation of Israeli Palestinians and Jews promoting coexistence, wrote about the hilltop youth in his recent book Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and ...”

“... slaughtered relatives, destroyed homes, amputation of hands and feet and ears. Millions may still be living with the psychological effects. The UN Human Development Index, which ranks countries by life expectancy, education and standard of living, places Sierra Leone 177th out of 177. Twenty-eight per cent of children die before reaching the age of ...”

“... for help she was told ‘Madam, there were no black people in England before 1945.’ In fact, as David Olusoga’s remarkable book shows, people racialised as black have been in Britain for more than two thousand years. During the third century, North African Roman soldiers formed part of the occupation of the British Isles: ‘Aurelian Moors’ were ...”

“... worked in Bomberg’s shop, replacing another Jewish scholar who had converted to Christianity: ‘May his soul be bound up in a bag full of holes,’ Levita swore. Together, Bomberg and Levita printed an Aramaic-Hebrew dictionary and the Masoret Hamasoret, a compendium of the correct spelling and notation of every word in the Hebrew Bible. Levita also worked ...”

“... clear out of Russia and leave the Russians to fight it out among themselves’. In Britain, David Lloyd George had similar reservations, but his government included a passionate supporter of the intervention, the newly appointed minister of munitions and soon to be secretary of state for war, Winston Churchill.Wilson’s scepticism meant that the ...”

“... and negations in Davie’s art are clearly conditions of their opposite, as a love of country may dictate a refusal to be mindlessly ‘patriotic’. In ‘Middlesex’ Davie tells the story of an English girl met serving beers in a Greek bar: The longer loop their Odysseys, the more Warmly exact the Ithakas they remember: Thus, home she said was ...”

“... 29 May. Everyone I know is obsessed with Roy Keane’s tournament-ending public diatribe against the Ireland manager, Mick McCarthy. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, having meetings about me? You were a crap player, you are a crap manager. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are manager of my country and you’re not even Irish, you English cunt ...”

“... mortality levels. At some point in their lives Adam Smith, John Miller, William Robertson and David Hume began to question the theology in which they had been reared: Camic is convinced that ‘their revolution was a union of circumstances’ – in other words, that it was their rearing which freed them for it. That Adam Ferguson did less original ...”

“... argued document asking for the review to be undertaken in the first place. The NCC’s chairman, David Pascall, is a former member of Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street Policy Unit. The former head of the Policy Unit, Lord Griffiths, now chairs the School Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC) which will soon be merged with NCC. It just so happens that ...”

“... with firm, frontally presented bodies or with devices that enhance its given texture. Thus stone may, in his metaphors, ‘disclose itself’ or ‘grow steadfastly’, emerging into ‘stone-blossom’. The ideal carver merely helps the stone to unfurl. Taken as prompts to interest English readers in distant Italian reliefs, these marine and vegetable ...”

“... unavailability of the personal style, engender the well-nigh universal practice today of what may be called pastiche.’ This thought-provoking assertion captures a truth about the shift from the modern to the postmodern: there is something pastiche-like about a great many contemporary writers, not least those who write in a personal voice which is in ...”

“... named for a person whose name we don’t recognise: ‘Bill Lawton’, ‘Ernst Hechinger’, ‘David Janiak’. ‘Bill Lawton’, a secret name uttered by children playing in their rooms, turns out to be Bin Laden translated into Americanese. ‘Ernst Hechinger’ turns out to have been the name Martin went under when he was involved in the German ...”

“... expectations. For all that the Labour Party has tried to exploit Remainer discontent with the May government’s push for a clean Brexit, a powerful undertow of Lexiteering persists. The post-2008 crisis of capitalism has delivered a propitious conjuncture: the left’s supplanting of New Labour and its engagement with an electorate that seems willing to ...”