“... by David Batterham. Batterham is a second-hand bookseller and the book a collection of letters to Howard Hodgkin from the places, some of them quite far-flung, where book-buying has taken him. There are letters from Spain, Finland, provincial France and even Istanbul, with Batterham’s picaresque adventures the connecting thread. There’s something of John ...”

“... mess was a house next to a dunghill. He spent six months on the Western Front with his pilot, Howard Redmayne Harker, and qualified as an observer. Harker, coincidentally, was Fernald’s mother’s maiden name and the two became close. (Harker died seven months after Fernald, of pneumonia.) There is a picture of them looking splendid, not quite ...”

“... Jarman made a note in his diary in April 1989: ‘Since autumn: Terry, Robert, David, Ken, Paul, Howard. All the brightest and best trampled to death – surely even the Great War brought no more loss into one life in just 12 months, and all this as we made love not war.’ In March 1992: ‘We talked of the people who died of Aids this week.’ ‘To say ...”

“... Confidential Chats with Boys (1911) by the American physician and sex-pamphleteer William Lee Howard. Dr Howard urged teenage boys to ‘sleep on the floor, anywhere: go without sleeping’ rather than share a bed with another boy or a man. And if it couldn’t be avoided, ‘keep awake with your eyes on something you ...”

“... beauty [and] life and inner emotions. That book relates to … everything.” He identified with Howard Roark, the novel’s idealistic protagonist, who designs skyscrapers and rages against the establishment.’ Roark is an Ubermensch, a towering genius set above the mass of mediocrity. He blows up a building he has designed rather than submit to any ...”

“... proved even less successful than his predecessor, he was replaced by another Thatcherite, Michael Howard, who went down to defeat against Blair in 2005. In truth, it was Blair himself who most appreciated her blessing. When she wrote to him after his first victory to congratulate him on his success he was, in the words of Jonathan Powell, his chief of staff ...”

“... of Israeli policy have become an endangered species in the foreign policy establishment. When Howard Dean called for the United States to take a more ‘even-handed role’ in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Joseph Lieberman accused him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was ‘irresponsible’. Virtually all the top Democrats in ...”

“... also been in the Resistance. For the role of von Ebrennac, Melville chose the Swiss-American actor Howard Vernon, who was known for playing villainous Nazi officers. ‘You were so good at playing a Nazi bastard,’ Melville told him, ‘but you’ll be just as good playing a sympathetic Nazi.’ The 27-day shoot was spread out over a year since Melville ...”

“... check broke loose, electing three Conservative leaders in succession – Hague, Duncan Smith and Howard – who were sworn opponents of Maastricht, none with any hope of winning an election. In government, Blair’s initial doubts about the single currency, prompted by the hostility to the euro of the Murdoch press that had helped elect him, soon faded. But ...”

“... seated on the lawn as one of an assorted company, including John Strachey, Harold Nicolson, Peter Howard and Professor Joad, of prospective Parliamentary candidates. Three years later, when Mosley was starting to move towards Fascism, there were some letters, which are extant, in which my father sought reassurance from Mosley that his brand of Fascism was not ...”