“... generations no true-born Joyce has been female.’ The female element was supplied by his wife May, the unwitting instigator of her husband’s intense dislike for his wife’s relations, especially the females – ‘the sink of the Murrays’, as he referred to them – who must on no account be allowed to pollute the hallowed ground of the Joyce ...”

“... is Barthelme’s stories. In ‘Marie, Marie, hold on tight’ (an early effort which the author may now find embarrassingly obvious), the leader of the protest against the human condition ended up by delivering a lecture ‘with good diction and enunciation’ to a tiny audience. The lecturer had eloquence, and eloquence, he said, is ‘really all any of us ...”

“... at Edgbaston in the first test, when Ramadhin was required to bowl 98 successive overs while May and Cowdrey put on 411 for the fourth wicket. Sobers, who could bowl fast, reveals that he offered to try taking the long overdue new ball, but Goddard would not take this risk! Ramadhin himself was demoralised and took only five further wickets in the ...”

“... in America, and his renown probably stems less from his poems, meritorious as the best of those may be, than from his political journalism and celebrated daredevilry, This indifference to contemporary English verse appears all the more ironic and quizzical in light of the determined attempts by numerous schools of American poetry to look beyond their own ...”

“... each by one of her two daughters. She is best known for her convent school novel Frost in May, which Elizabeth Bowen admired for being both a ‘minor classic’ and a ‘work of art’. It was published in 1933; by 1954 its author was complaining that it hung ‘round my neck like a withered wreath’. She would have liked her three subsequent novels ...”

“... prime minister; Terry is now a dab hand at the DIY. The two callings are not worlds apart, as some may think. And Terry, as the bigger boy, still has the edge. On the front cover of his ‘Memories of an Older Brother’, he is to be seen alongside one of the old firm’s garden ornaments: a dinky humanoid in ruminative stance. Terry is slightly in the ...”

“... he is up to. We know that as a young man he moved to Moscow because he was a Communist. But he may have been involved there in something more sinister than tailoring; he may be mad; he may have intended to murder the fashion magnate and fled from a bad conscience. Two American couples ...”

“... in the midst of a lethal hailstorm? If the latter, then this will be a Nato-assisted pull-out. God may know what that means, but Nato planners are clueless and frightened. To back his claim that the UN pull-out does not mean war, President Tudjman claims that Serbia and the Yugoslav Army are too weary and battered to fight on behalf of their Krajina ...”

“... also. For that he is indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting, is my opinion. And I may add that in this opinion Mr Whistler himself entirely concurs.’ There have been quite a number of biographies of Whistler since the lengthy and allegedly ‘authorised’ one by the artist Joseph Pennell and his wife, published in 1908. The Pennells are the ...”

“... were paid for by his brother-in-law John T. Milliken, who had married Patrick’s beautiful sister May. Milliken had telegraphed Patrick’s counsel at the beginning of the case: ‘One million dollars, if necessary, for Patrick’s legitimate defence.’ As the case wore on and the defence case became clearer more and more people were willing to testify that ...”

“... we can handle all the European themes, but without superstition, with an irreverence which may have, which already has, happy consequences.’ Culture in this sense, to add contemporary Europeans to the analogy, would be ours to play with, to learn from, to adapt and prolong, it would be what literature always is for ...”

“... much re-evaluation of authors has taken place, and such a toppling of old hierarchies, that they may be surprised by what they find: a sophisticated Plautus, a refined Ennius, a serious Ovid, a joky Tacitus, an obscene Horace, an ironic Juvenal. Silver Latin is no longer debased and comedy no longer read only for the laughs. Cicero and Livy, less fashionable ...”

“... town would have brought Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird to mind. Now, the novel’s appeal may have more to do with our conflicting feelings about the trial and how it should have been conducted. In Guterson there are no lecherous journalists chasing exclusives or high-powered lawyers negotiating film rights. The sessions do not take place under the ...”

“... An exultant Cornwell described the Putnam deal as ‘the biggest ever for a woman’, which it may not be (Danielle Steel is more discreet about her advances). A list of the 25 all-time bestselling mystery titles drawn up by USA Today in March listed six Scarpetta titles, with The Body Farm (1994) at number one. In July 1996 Cause of Death was the ...”

“... a religious genius, and hopes there will be more like him – for a mad moment one suspects he may have himself in mind for the part – but doesn’t want his own beliefs to be mistaken for any others that may be on offer. He is the sole modern expositor of a faith recovered from antiquity, and he urges all persons of ...”