“... kill themselves at Guantánamo. The study refers to three confirmed suicides and two deaths that may have been suicides in 2007; it suggests there were at least 120 attempts by inmates to hang themselves in 2003 alone – authorities log these under the heading ‘manipulative self-injurious behaviour’. Fletcher and Stover are worried by the rapid erosion ...”

“... peninsula of Paliki, now attached to Kefalonia, but once, he claims, a separate island. Geologists may manage to prove that Paliki was once detached from Kefalonia, but the description of Ithaca in the Odyssey will still fail to match the geography of the area (Homer’s Ithaca, for example, boasted a ‘well visible mountain’, whereas Paliki is flat). We ...”

“... the abusive Egyptian slavedriver, ‘so he knew better than those with no experience that to kill may be sweet, but to have killed is ghastly in the extreme, and that you should not kill.’ How to imagine an ethic that limits violence in an appallingly violent world becomes a central burden of the narrative. What is especially noteworthy about The Tables of ...”

“... had cast a shadow of disapproval over its diminutive, the smile (le sourire). Aristotle may have noted that laughing distinguished mankind from the rest of the animal kingdom, but that didn’t mean it was to be encouraged. ‘The passion of Laughter is nothyng but a suddaine Glory arising from the suddaine Conception of some Eminency in our selves ...”

“... defined and applied to which different philosophers respond in mutually irreconcilable ways. They may agree that liberty of conscience is a basic entitlement in a just society, while conceding that there are some creeds whose behavioural expression a just, or even minimally decent, society would be bound to outlaw. But in a multicultural society, there ...”

“... journeyman to a deep causal agent, lifting the lid on questions of love and loyalty as he goes. He may be a victim of the 20th century, but he is also one of its splendid creations, a man in league with his times, looking out for a vital connection. Jackie, the child of the ill-fitting Melvilles, thinks she might have caused the explosion that killed her ...”

“... B. Cunningham on Hamid Karzai, 23 September 2014While America’s combat mission in Afghanistan may be over, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people endures.President Barack Obama, 15 October 2015When [Afghans] leave, they break the social contract. This is an existential choice. Countries do not survive with their best attempting to flee. So I have no ...”

“... supposed to (Roland Barthes: ‘Is History not simply that time when we were not born?’), and it may have an element of fiction in it. ‘We launched our marriage in guilt,’ Diana says. ‘Everyone had to be listened to, apologised to, thanked for giving us permission to live our lives. On our first day of marriage, starting our honeymoon, all we could ...”

“... of women with rounded bellies frolicking in baths connected by strange tubes, and a list of what may be alchemical or herbal recipes. No one knows its author or origins, and no one can read it. The faded brown script is written in an unknown alphabet that has baffled historians, cryptographers and bibliophiles for nearly six centuries. When Umberto Eco ...”

“... of Jarrow and always spoke for the workers. Yet this well-written biography surprises us: she may have been a founding spirit of the party but her interests, associations and beliefs took her a long way from the straightforward defence of the Labour Party as we have come to know it. At one point a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, and ...”

“... at least have some sense of style. Wishing-wells, piped organ music and Cadillacs on the house may not be everyone’s choice, but they would certainly brighten up what most British have to suffer in the process of getting wed. And the idea that these chapels offer a 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week service also has its appeal. Better surely than 10 to ...”

“... critics. Such disagreement will require a serious answer to the question of how Muslim nations may work to build a just and free society within a religious framework, without surrender to or constant threat from extremist elements. If the novel is remembered for having once again raised the possibility of such reformist consciousness among moderate ...”

“... pleasure in delivering it to those who have tired of riotous living in a far country may even prompt the hospitable suggestion that the fatted calf’s number is up (given that it can no longer be exported). But there is another way of reading the same question, which will naturally appeal to those who still do not repent for having joined the ...”

“... Johnson, whose ghostly appearance in this survey of ‘post-war pop’ (he died before the war) may be conclusive proof of his supernatural powers. Johnson’s life and music are legendary, largely because he is thought to have sold his soul to the devil. Hendrix and Johnson have obvious affinities – both died young, both were keen philanderers, both were ...”

“... Troilus and Cressida, Othello, Twelfth Night, and quite a lot more about Hamlet. This account may make the book sound scrappy, but it holds together. Its chief hero Hamlet keeps returning to the scene like a reassuring leitmotif, and there are other compensating virtues. Ms Everett is, as always, discursive, and as always ready to take any promising ...”