“... The​ city of Minneapolis, in which George Floyd lived and died, has been plagued not only by Covid-19 but also by an epidemic of police violence. As Mike Griffin, a community organiser, put it, he was ‘just as likely to die from a cop as from Covid’. Major news outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post, seemed astonished at the scale of structural and environmental racism exposed by the pandemic ...”

“... Almost five years ago the Cape Town publishing company David Philip brought out Way Up Way Out, a novel by Harold Strachan. Some time later I was sent a copy of the book by a friend of Strachan’s in KwaZulu-Natal, where the author himself has lived much of his life ...”

“... their fantasy of frontier settlement and biblical prophecy was being played out, and they will be blind to the fact that they will now be living amid the ruins of the homes of their former neighbours. The Jewish settlers who lived illegally in Gaza will be handsomely compensated (an ...”

“... to expose the secrets of Whitehall while the story was still hot, they were strongly aroused by the sight of naked acts of power, and thrilled to bits by their own part in the proceedings. With the diaries of Leopold Stennett Amery we return to the politics of an era whose revelations are chiefly of interest to ...”

“... this ‘such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: it cannot be right these actions should go any further’. Royal Commissions, ad hoc inquiries into a defined issue, were not in fashion at the time. The last one had been held fourteen years earlier. But the Conservative home secretary, Kenneth Baker, announced on the day ...”

“... compounds harmaline and dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Their textiles and ceramics are characterised by kené, geometric patterns that represent the life energy of the ayahuasca plants, which are absorbed by those who drink the brew. Kené means simply ‘design’, but the patterns themselves are far from simple, with thick ...”

“... delegations have met more than a dozen times, though it’s hard to point to anything that would be different had they not. Over the months the talks have taken a predictable form. Negotiators are convened. Unnamed officials say that, this time, they are optimistic about a deal – right up until the proceedings break down. The US has presented a succession ...”

“... a historian called Elliot Weiner as he searches for a cache of love letters supposedly written by ‘the shallowest president in history’. Along the way he gives us the backstory of Harding’s improbable political career, seduces the granddaughter of Harding’s now 80-year-old mistress and shares a nifty hack for making hollandaise in a blender. The ...”

“... Yet many marine species that once teemed in their millions have been harried close to extinction by nets, longlines and harpoons. The scale of the loss is mind-boggling. For every three hundred green turtles that swam the Caribbean before industrialised fishing, just one is left. Ninety per cent of the world’s large fish and oyster beds have gone. Seagrass ...”

“... David Attenborough​ was born in 1926, the same year as Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro and Elizabeth II. He began hosting Zoo Quest on BBC television in 1954; not quite seventy years later, his latest series, Wild Isles, has just finished airing (it’s still available on iPlayer, or Amazon Prime for those outside the UK ...”

“... to a church tower protruding through the trees. The tower was the last folly in England, built by Berners to improve the view. There was no church and the entrance door was bricked up to avoid the payment of rates imposed by an indignant local council. A retired admiral also wrote to protest, saying that he had been ...”

“... to economic stability and the balance of terror but even to human dignity itself. Are we about to be displaced by the Ultra-Intelligent Machine, contemptuously indifferent to human fate – or is the Frankenstein image the product of an inflamed imagination, curable by a healthy dose of ...”

“... deliberate. As with Swift, names are significant: ‘Oitar’ (Oi Paz’s home planet) should be read backwards as well as forwards. Things look bad for the United Kingdom when its female Prime Minister – perhaps to become the Lady Finchley later alluded to – gives way to Dr Charon. The events narrated take place approximately ten years hence. The ...”

“... of his writing than with his wilful mirroring of the self-destructive, drug-centred lives led by the rock stars he writes about. Kent made his name in the mid and late Seventies as a strung-out stringer, the suburban boy getting high with Keith Richards, hanging out at backstage drug binges, and – on one memorable occasion – being beaten about the ...”

“... After the First World War Germany was compelled by the victorious Allies to accept full responsibility for the war, and in consequence to pay all the costs. In spite of the work of Fritz Fischer and his associates, few historians would now claim that this was fair. To the German people at the time it seemed outrageous ...”