“... my harte And close myne eyes for aie? ‘Half the poetry of the 18th century is probably written by him,’ a character says in Peter Ackroyd’s novel Chatterton. Yet he appeals equally to defenders and opponents of the canon. Chatterton was convinced of his own talent and ambitious to be recognised as one of the great ...”

“... A couple of years ago, Paul Auster was asked by a producer at National Public Radio whether he would become a regular contributor to one of the network’s more popular shows. All he’d have to do was come up with a story every month or so and read it aloud. Daunted by the prospect – what writer has plotlines to spare? – Auster was about to decline, when his wife, Siri Hustvedt, who is also a novelist, came up with a suggestion ...”

“... There used to be something thought of as ‘a Booker novel’ – a big, ambitious balloon sent up to signify seriousness and loftiness of purpose. Such books were not always very attractive or even very interesting, though we may learn to miss them just because their elevation already seems old-fashioned. Last year, the prize’s new sponsors let it be known that it was time for a shiny new populism, and so far the judges have concurred ...”

“... In​ 2015 Theresa May, who was then home secretary, announced that there would be an inquiry into undercover policing and the operation of the Metropolitan Police’s Special Demonstration Squad (SDS). This secret unit, whose purpose was to infiltrate subversive groups, was set up in 1968 as part of Special Branch in response to protests against the Vietnam War ...”

“... of Modernism. It was this crux, de Waal suggests, that made it possible for Rie to define herself by contradistinction and find her style. She also made a break from the comfortable family life of summer holidays on her grandparents’ estate at Eisenstadt and a fully staffed household. In 1928 she commissioned Ernst Plischke to design a studio and apartment ...”

“... Westminster. The referendum went against independence – 55 per cent to 45 – but was followed by an extraordinary upheaval, as tens of thousands of people, politically animated or re-animated by the referendum, flooded into the ‘Yes’ parties – not just the SNP but also the Scottish Greens and the Scottish ...”

“... for their children, we guess, guessing also that this is paradise. This is the utopia projected by Chicago progressives, the lost land glimpsed in the recollections of a visitor to the newbuild quoted in the Chicago Tribune in 1958: ‘You could sit on the grass and just enjoy yourself.’ Marshall’s fantasia allows us to think: those lawns might not yet ...”

“... Lives of Remarkable Men’ was a series established by Maxim Gorky in the 1930s so that the Soviet Union might know its heroes. It’s ironic that Liudmila Saraskina’s deeply admiring biography of the David who challenged the Soviet Goliath should now appear under its imprint ...”

“... There are two ways that computers might add to our wellbeing. First, they could do so indirectly, by increasing our ability to produce other goods and services. In this they have proved something of a disappointment. In the early 1970s, American businesses began to invest heavily in computer hardware and software, but for decades this enormous investment ...”

“... what the pope, every Armenian and a great many others call a genocide should more properly be described as a First World War event involving mass killings (one of many such, down to the present day) and deportations (a wartime necessity given Armenian complicity in Russia’s invasion of North-east Anatolia); but in any case it was an unfortunate event ...”

“... Israel​ is now confronted by the greatest unrest it has faced since the second intifada ended more than ten years ago. Palestinian protests and clashes with Israeli forces have spread from East Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank, as well as to Gaza and Palestinian towns inside Israel. In the first three weeks of October, ten Israelis were killed and more than a hundred injured in stabbings and shootings, and by drivers ramming cars into pedestrians ...”

“... from and was central to the work of the think tank Right, was that the window of acceptability can be moved. An idea can start far outside the political mainstream – flat taxes, abolish the IRS, more guns in schools, building a beautiful wall and making Mexico pay – but once it has been stated and argued for, framed and restated, it becomes thinkable. It ...”

“... entered the small French town of Oradour-sur-Glane, herded most of its population, swollen by refugees, into barns and garages, the women and children into the church, then killed them with firearms and grenades. The panzergrenadiers had been informed that Oradour was a hotbed of Resistance activity and were seeking revenge for the abduction nearby, on ...”

“... Simon​ de Pury, assisted by ‘a regular contributor to Vanity Fair’, has written a book about his ascent to the top of the art world: the auctions he conducted, the deals he struck, the parties he attended. It resembles a board game, with smaller parts assigned to the ‘hedge fund overlord’, the ‘polo-playing playboy millionaire’, the ‘James Bond of the Russian oligarchy’, the ‘French luxury goods tycoon’ (also appearing as the ‘French luxury titan’), the ‘serial dater of supermodels’, and the ‘leveraged-buyout king ...”

“... around to it. Something about the title kept putting me off: that cosy French chez followed by a harsher, doubly foreign surname. But I must have started it once, because there was a boarding-card stub stuck in at the end of the first chapter. So, twenty years on, it was time finally to follow Anita’s advice. That harsh, clashing title turns out to ...”