“... Day 1879, he made a note rather than a resolution: ‘A perception of the failure of things to be what they are meant to be, lends them, in place of the intended interest, a new and greater interest of an unintended kind.’The opening line of Wessex Poems includes a coinage, ‘chancefulness’, which raises a question ...”

“... pastime. The beloved buildings may look smaller or shabbier, the unforgettable view is ruined by the new solar farm, the once fascinating characters in the novel have lost their power to enchant, everything seems blurred or – the verdict from which there is no appeal – dated. Surely Raffles would be the least likely ...”

“... out to the horizon. There was transparent sheeting as a guard against the frost, played about by a shimmer of soft artificial lights. What was this? Was it Art? Nature? Some kind of installation? And what did all those identical Enos smell like?Eno has haunted me for more than fifty years, ever since I first saw Roxy Music on Top of the Pops in 1972 ...”

“... their right to voice these irrational opinions. I have battled in print against people like David Irving (Hitler’s War), who misuse history to advance their dangerous ideologies, and, at the other end of the scale, men like Martin Gray (For those I loved), who use these appalling events for self-aggrandisement. Interestingly, nobody minds much about ...”

“... bit out of it all’. As a narrative device it is brilliant, setting the scene for what is to be a bleak story, introducing some of the leading characters, and insinuating that the author was eyewitness to an intimate gathering. It comes, then, as something of a surprise to learn that this evocative account was written ...”

“... des Belges’ and he, apparently, remained on the coast. The visit which was remembered by Jessie Conrad had a purpose. Casement had read Heart of Darkness and he wanted Conrad to support him in the case he was making against atrocities in the Congo. ‘I am glad you read the Heart of D., tho’ of course it’s an awful fudge,’ Conrad had written ...”

“... Anglo-Indian middle classes was probably not as immediate and direct as it has been made out to be in subsequent colonial and nationalist narratives, it brought to an end a period of cultural exchange between different races. The late 18th and the first half of the 19th century had seen the commercial and colonial expansion of the East India Company in ...”

“... On one occasion I drove a car through a brick wall.’ In the mid-1990s, Gary’s life was saved by new antiretroviral treatments. He had also been infected with hepatitis C, however, and both conditions continued to undermine his health. Contaminated blood products, he said, had ‘ruined his life’.Colin Smith’s parents were told their son had HIV when ...”

“... but the publication of John Updike’s selected letters, masterfully assembled and presented by James Schiff, doesn’t appear to have been the parade event that might have been expected. The reviews have been largely laudatory, marbled with tribute to Updike’s impeccable filigree, effortless versatility, unfaltering application and sleek plumage, but ...”

“... late 20th-century figurehead, Margaret Thatcher, did so much to create the problem, is responding by separating off the economically least powerful and squeezing them into the smallest, meanest, most insecure possible living space. In effect, if not in explicit intention, it is a let-the-poor-be-poor crusade, a Campaign for ...”

“... Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA), embedded its style of postcolonial governance by resisting its enemies at home and abroad, and distributing largesse to loyal members of the movement. Its Marxism-Leninism is a thing of the past, after an abrupt about-turn in 1990, as Soares de Oliveira, an associate professor in African politics at ...”

“... with these women was unclear, but his delight in telling the tale of sexual encounters which, by his account, could only be sadistic on the part of the man and painful for the women involved, was repellent. He was boasting. Doubtless he thought he was promoting their case. He registered my disapproval. Twice I declined ...”

“... river on the other side, but since she hated water that was fine. Sometimes a fishing boat chugged by at high tide and looked down on her red brick terrace.One evening in early December 2013 Waters was at home, feeling she’d bested the Christmas run-in. The holiday food was bought and she’d steam-cleaned the carpets. There’d been a story about east coast ...”

“... paper of some kind, with a mix of local and national and international news, comfortably financed by cover price and advertising. During the day, on the way to work, in the workplace, in the canteen, there would be news on the radio, or continued picking over the carcass of the paper. In the evening, there would ...”

“... much from XR, and whatever they were planning for the early summer has been postponed indefinitely by the onset of Covid-19. The virus may have changed the game, but not the preoccupations of environmentalists. To many, it presages the difficulties that climate change has in store for us; it will bring us to our senses, they hope, and force us into a massive ...”