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“... to finding his own food by pawing salmon from the Thames? Another royal in-law, Louis IX of France, sent Henry an elephant, the most demanding gift of all. Other potentates readily supported far bigger animal establishments. The Emperor Frederick had three private zoos, sometimes taking the more spectacular beasts on his travels; he also ran a training ...”

“... friend sneaked me into the Unprofor headquarters in a villa in the centre of town. General Michael Rose was away in Pale, we were told, negotiating with the Serbs. We were shown into a bedroom, now used as Rose’s private office. A Royal Marine sat back in the general’s chair, feet on the desk, his head hidden behind a ...”

“... architects ‘finished off’ or rebuilt cathedrals, abbeys and churches by the hundred, in France as in Britain. There was, apparently, something unseemly (or even ungodly) about a place of worship which showed the marks of great age too visibly. Equally, the grim rectitude (and ugliness) of the Ancient Monuments administered by the Ministry of Works ...”

“... severe to hit the regime since it had come into office, began in Lincolnshire. Columns of smoke rose above the English countryside. At one point the nation’s leader was tempted to take personal charge of the management of the crisis. But when the Lincolnshire problem proved to be shortlived, he unwisely wound the preventative operation down, persuading ...”

“... Germain transformed at its northern end into a wide canal from which the buildings on either side rose in silence like chiselled bluffs must have been extraordinary. So must the smaller streets in the Latin Quarter, door-deep in water. Soon enough, they could be reached by a series of wooden walkways set on tall trestles, their legs spread in the placid ...”

“... in the Winter Garden’. I didn’t plant a winter garden, but the book led on to his rose books: ‘The Old Shrub Roses’, ‘Shrub Roses of Today’, and the one about climbers and ramblers. (‘Horse-Chestnut Trees and Roses’) It is this dilatory or sidelong compliance I am talking about. Here follows my own belated winter garden to the ...”

“... from the ‘golden age’ of crime mysteries. Dissolution also owes much to The Name of the Rose, though Umberto Eco’s glum postscript (‘Very little is discovered and the detective is defeated’) does not apply. Shardlake always gets his man (and/or woman).Dissolution introduces readers to Shardlake’s character and the condition of mid-Tudor ...”

“... barking dogs, rain and wind. He also used music sparely to brilliant effect, working with some of France’s best film composers, including Martial Solal, Paul Misraki and Georges Delerue. But there was sometimes so little dialogue that his assistants wondered what the actors were supposed to do. ‘On va dilater,’ he would tell them – ‘We’re going to ...”

“... and sand of those buildings were used to reinforce the city ramparts.Arles is in the South of France, in Provence, on the lower part of the Rhône River, the marshy Rhône delta, on a limestone hill 25 metres above sea level. It was settled, successively, by Ligurians, Greeks from Phocaea, Celts, and in 46 BC by the Romans as a retirement colony for ...”

“... few exceptions … the West is silent about him. Even his beloved Italy and his still more beloved France show little receptivity to his life work. At the age of 80, despite his effort to sound sorrowful at the decline in his brother’s reputation, Thomas Mann could not disguise a vague undertone of satisfaction. At the end of the letter he noted that ‘it ...”

“... my meetings and conversations with her. What we talked about: art, books, the literary world, France, friends in common. What we didn’t talk about: her early years, her personal life, politics (I never knew whether or how she voted), or anything practical. No exchange of recipes. No mention of sport. ‘Anita, what do you think of Ireland’s chances in ...”

“... the worst:expect the best:andtake what comes‘Not a Hannah Arendt quote! :/’ Samantha Rose Hill, then the assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Centre at Bard College in New York State, tweeted back, across the hours and the Atlantic Ocean. ‘I know! ’Twas sweet gift,’ Stonebridge replied, then added: ‘We should make our own.’‘One ...”

“... have prevented him from becoming prime minister. In his last letter to Knox before leaving for France, he wrote: ‘I’m going to be rather odd. I’m not going to “pope” until after the war (if I’m alive).’ Volunteering for the war meant that at Oxford, as at Eton, he stayed only half the course, being ‘sent down by the Kaiser’ as he liked to ...”

“... energy supply now hinges on state-owned French companies based in Paris: Electricité de France, better known as EDF, and Areva, maker of nuclear power stations. Will EDF and Areva build a fleet of new nuclear reactors in Britain or won’t they, and if they do, how much will it cost the British and French public? Defending her record in Parliament ...”

“... on with them through successive changes of habitat – moving to the United States in 1945, to France in 1955, to Switzerland in 1957 – until 1972.The second bunch of Maigret novels have a more relaxed and expansive feel than the first cluster. At times the landscape itself is sunnier. (This is a powerful technique in fiction, more so than readers ...”