“... electric oven, the only kind I’d ever known – she is more alive than most writers apparently en vie. Extracts from these letters were serialised ahead of publication in the Daily Mail; the appearance of a minor, early short story next year is being treated as an event; the New York Times profiled the people who bought Plath’s possessions at Bonhams ...”

“... the absence of climate sceptics in high places; and the Cambridge associate professor of divinity James Orr, who has hosted both Jordan Peterson and the notorious peddler of race science Charles Murray at events for Trinity Forum Europe, a conservative Christian charity.These men, together with other right-wing academics, reportedly began meeting in Cambridge ...”

“... popular Bay Area psychic, a friend to Allen Ginsberg and the Beats and the experimental filmmaker James Broughton and a prominent gay political activist.) Despite Arthur’s chronic selfishness, Esther appears to have treated him in a generous if not saintly spirit. He ended up extracting quite of lot of money from her and decades after they split was still ...”

“... there we planned on finding a flat in East Ham … You know it’s quite easy to find flats so, er, then when we got there everyone seemed to recognise us, jeering and pointing and taking pictures of us, so that’s when we decided we were not going to find a flat, because anyone could hand us in to the police, um, so Mark went to the Argos in East Ham and ...”

“... not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab ...”