“... distance of the meat-packing plant in Saskatoon. Unfortunately or fortunately as the case may be, most of her pieces are set in Montreal, which is as foreign to me as Reykjavik or Ulan Bator, Canada being several countries stitched together in the same flag. She begins, however, in a way that is familiar: ‘That year, it began to rain on the 24th of ...”

“... or compiled an anthology on a particular theme ...’: the editor of The Oxford Book of Death may have flinched from an Oxford Book of Irony, but he might have taken as a model Aldous Huxley’s lovely lasting book Texts and Pretexts, with its fine title (modest and radiating) and with its responsible freedoms as to when to quote, and how much, and with ...”

“... soldiers sought as playmates. Hopes were raised by a further relaxation a few weeks later: ‘You may now engage in conversation with adult Germans in the streets and public places. You will not, for the present, enter the homes and houses of the Germans.’ Nigel Hamilton, in this robust last volume of his 2732-page trilogy, does not reproduce these ...”

“... only the delicate appetites of language specialists. However, for what has been set before us may the Lord make us truly thankful, for Hieatt and Butler’s work on these texts is beyond praise. The Forme of Cury, for instance, is popularly known from its 18th-century editions. But only the other day an expensive advertisement in a food magazine was put ...”

“... a record of indefatigable research and meagre revelations, is stuffed with ‘probably’s’, ‘may’s’, ‘if’s’ and ‘just possible’s’, a case of seeking hopefully rather than arriving. Born in 1829 as the daughter of a London builder, Juliet came from ‘the artisan rather than the professional classes’. Miss Oliver is faintly surprised ...”

“... repertoire. Modern analysts do not esteem such notes (the article on analysis in The New Grove may well repudiate the method). They are deliberately superficial. As they are to be read at concerts, too great a detail would get in the way. The sadness is that many biographies of composers, and some studies of historical epochs, adopt the approach. This is ...”

“... when the latter depends for its main defence needs upon thousands of US military technicians may appear illogical, but such reverses of fortune and judgment are common enough in this context. The forces of Islam, deplored in the case of insurgent Iran, are deemed by many Western politicians to have new-found freedom-loving potential in the case of ...”

“... By ‘family structure’ many things may be intended. I shall take it here in two senses. First, in the sense of composition of the co-resident domestic group, as the historical sociologists call it. This means the knot of persons who live together, man, wife and sometimes, but by no means always, their children, their relatives, if any, along with their servants, now excessively rare ...”

“... if not the imagination of lay commentators on language, then their bile; most of them, though they may not know it, are diehard diachronicists, for whom etymology is also explanation. They are oblivious to what Saussure has to say about ‘values and co-existing terms’. The values of words are not the same as their meanings, although it is not always easy to ...”

“... in this book is very doubtful. When you listen to the arguments in Measure for Measure, you may be impressed by the Duke’s grand formulation of the Contemptus mundi: there are ways of dealing with the fear of death, and the Duke specifies some of them, but Claudio is closer to the real thing and speaks like a man with a dread of it in his ...”

“... on the surface. Evelyn Waugh said he was ‘exquisitely entertaining’, but this is ambiguous: he may have meant that Russell was a figure of fun, like William Boot. When Russell died in 1947 he was described in the Times as ‘that most endearing of Somerset farmers’ – the best tribute they could come up with. Russell was ever a countryman, proud of his ...”

“... imaginable. Beneath this welter of information the reader, especially the average literary reader, may well feel Gradground out of comprehension: the issue of ‘the way of life’ seems for long periods to have been totally forgotten. Yet Ladurie does once again have a story to tell, and once again it is one of considerable interest and provocation, even to ...”

“... a gathering doubt about the point of sustaining an imperial-style monarchy, coupled with what may be the final collapse of the royal family as an even faintly plausible symbol of what is best in national life – Linda Colley’s book is an essential prehistory of this whole (though not wholly melancholy) catalogue of anxieties. The British, Colley ...”

“... the other the valuable initial glow of creation. Between the two most writers oscillate; some may incline more towards the Shelleyan idea, others more to Horace’s labor limae. But most know that both the delight of the donnée and the less joyous pleasures of revision actually work together. Valéry thought poorly of the initial flourish, what you were ...”

“... particles, but not one that has been so well recognised by Nobel prizes.’ The Nobel prizes may be delayed for a while because the ‘discovery’ is far from secure. For a start, some have argued that String Theory, currently popular as a Theory of Everything, would ‘smear out’ any singularity. (Hawking notes this, but has a distaste for String ...”