“... 20 January) consists mainly of handsomely illustrated, alphabetically arranged entries by a number of commentators. The longest take up a few pages, the shortest a few lines. Many draw on her own writings, published and unpublished. As a result the critical generalities which are normally segregated in introductory essays are mixed with the kind of ...”

“... when she thinks of her father, a French Canadian who fought against the English and was executed by them. This and later moments in the film are dated by the start and end of the American Civil War (1861-65), when the girl is a grown-up. The adult Vivienne is wonderfully played by Vicky ...”

“... a portrait painter, but he devoted most of his career to the painting of murals. There will never be a satisfactory exhibition of his work, but to appreciate his achievements is not difficult since the greatest of these murals are in Parisian churches.Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff, is a ...”

“... the Owo Museum in Ondo State, attached to one of the oldest palaces in West Africa, only to be told by the security guard – an elderly man with a bow and arrow – that there was nothing to see. Everything had been stolen, including the famous 15th-century terracotta heads. The museum has never made a public ...”

“... It was shaping up​ to be the publishing event of the year, the first blast of post-pandemica as we emerged from our hobbit holes and combed the cobwebs from our hair: the starship arrival of Blake Bailey’s authorised biography of Philip Roth, Philip Roth: The Biography. The ‘the’ of the subtitle said: accept no substitutes ...”

“... two other biographies in English already exist: Iain Hamilton’s Koestler: A Biography (1982) and David Cesarani’s Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind (1998). But Scammell has little time for either work. His bibliography dismisses Hamilton’s book as ‘superficial and ill-researched’, and Cesarani’s (the one which attacked Koestler as a serial ...”

“... restaurant we go next door to the National Gallery, still after all these years a great luxury to be able to go in after hours. Walking through the galleries with the lights springing on as we pass through each door it’s always a temptation to turn aside and look at old favourites, but we press on to the basement of the Sainsbury Wing and the Late Rembrandt ...”

“... covers of the March issue of British Vogue. On the front, she’s wearing a chiffon crepon dress by Gucci – a semi-see-through affair with cartoon-effect sequined appliqué collar, ruffles, epaulettes and bow. She’s lying on a pink and gold brocade sofa, half-smiling and biting her thumb. On the back she’s advertising Yves Saint Laurent’s new Black ...”

“... Virginia Woolf​ could be cruelly accurate in her assessments of people. On 24 April 1925 Robert Graves visited her unexpectedly and stayed too long. She described him as ‘a nice ingenuous rattle headed young man’, and declared ‘the poor boy is all emphasis protestation and pose.’ By 1925 Graves had good reason to be ‘rattle headed ...”

“... Untrammelled curiosity is an excellent quality in a historian – none better – but it has to be turned inward if one attempts autobiography. At the insistence of his friends, publisher and agent, Hobsbawm did write an autobiography, but Interesting Times, published in 2002, when he was 85, is almost comically unrevealing. He writes movingly about his ...”

“... was the worst of the many recent bad news stories about the NHS, its significance underscored by the fact that David Cameron felt it necessary to present the report to the House of the Commons himself, rather than leave it to the secretary of state for health. The public inquiry was set up in 2010 ...”

“... in the middle of a promotional binge, late nights, dry-throat blather; the anecdotes on autopilot. By temperament he’s the contrary of the Tory apparatchik in the radio car. Instant confidentiality, a gentle workout for the laughter lines. He’s guilty. Of what? What have you got? Guilty with extenuating circumstances. ‘Truth without betrayal,’ Howard ...”

“... habit of people who have experienced starvation. Willy did not behave in this way; it seems by the time of the famine his mother was so fearful for his health that she kept up his strength by giving him an extra share from her own rations.Despite all the evidence, it was still a widely held belief that sufferers ...”

“... Of all the great English poets, Dryden must be the least enjoyed. Once honoured ‘rather in the stiffness than in the strength of his eminence’, he was soon ‘laid carefully away among the heroes’, according to Mark Van Doren, the critic who is still, nearly a century on, the most persuasive of his would-be resurrectors ...”

“... as a shock to read the original story of Pinocchio and discover that the Talking Cricket is killed by Pinocchio at their very first meeting. This unusual creature, who has lived in Geppetto’s house for a hundred years, offers Pinocchio a ‘great truth’, solemnly advising him that he will never come to any good if he doesn’t find a useful ...”