“... but has the consequence that aortic aneurysm is classified as a disorder of soft tissue, which may be logically correct but feels out of place. The problem is that any attempt to devise a scheme that is rigorously logical inevitably diverges from the way we actually talk about the world. The point, and the lesson I take from Cantwell Smith’s book, is ...”

“... she’s ‘such a Tory’. This is not a time for girly-swot politics talk. The ‘court of King David’, she observes, feels as if it is ‘actually the government’. ‘They are all here, the ones that eat, drink, party together … We all holiday together … we text each other bypassing the civil servants … it’s enough to repulse the ordinary ...”

“... to be them,’ but she didn’t know how, so instead of that, she ‘made it’ once with David Johansen, the Dolls’ lead singer, and drove the band around, together with their girlfriends, in her father’s turquoise Buick.It was while she was following the Dolls around that Harry met Elda Gentile, who had the idea of forming a band called Pure ...”

“... they included Brian Worthington, a former pupil of Leavis, and, for a short but inspiring time, David Lambert, a man who spoke about poetry and nature with such passion that it was no surprise when he left Clifton to become a gardener. He later c0-founded the Parks Agency and is now a compelling advocate for Extinction Rebellion.Jefferies taught with a ...”

“... make a choice: he asked his wife for a divorce, telling her that ‘Jane needs me more.’ There may already have been signs of a drinking problem that would later become serious; certainly, Comfort felt that Henderson needed his commitment and more of his time. She may have demanded that her place in his life was publicly ...”

“... in public interest terms, motives are generally mixed, only God can see into the heart etc. We may be on firmer ground making distinctions between denunciations on the basis of likely outcomes. Under Stalin during the Great Purges, these included arrest, exile to Gulag and summary execution. While the denunciatory processes of McCarthyism had some ...”

“... browser; in addition, the paper’s content becomes its own form of advertising. Another factor may be the length of the LRB’s articles: if you’re reading this online, your eyes are probably bleeding by now. So online works as a form of marketing without cannibalising the print circulation too much. That’s what seems to be ...”

“... Flaubert claimed to his friend Louis de Cormenin that he had translated Candide into English.) In May 1857, Flaubert wrote to Michel Lévy, the Parisian publisher of Madame Bovary, that ‘an English translation which fully satisfies me is being made under my eyes. If one is going to appear in England, I want it to be this one and not any other one.’ Five ...”

“... still exercised by the American ambassador and the American military commander, Lieutenant-General David Barno. Afghans and foreigners alike call Karzai the mayor of Kabul and Khalilzad the proconsul. Those close to both report that Karzai not only defers to Khalilzad but seeks his advice on all important issues. It was Khalilzad – American-educated and ...”

“... presumably, many straight readers. Perhaps a few more gay male writers – Paul Monette, David Leavitt and Armistead Maupin in the US, Alan Hollinghurst, Paul Bailey, Adam Mars-Jones in Britain – enjoy this crossover status. International comparisons, however, can be misleading, since they disguise the very different ways in which each country is ...”

“... as being ‘as big as a pigeon’s egg’, something else which like the banana I had never seen.3 May. A distressing call today from Dr C., the oncologist who looked after my friend Anne during her last illness. He talks about hospital services being deliberately run down and the difficulties of ward care due to shortage of staff but it’s only gradually I ...”

“... Witnessing the giving of offence, like being part of the audience for someone else’s humour, may have its enjoyment, but, tellingly, the real champions of comic abuse don’t much care for this secondary role, and this points to another dimension of the pleasure involved: it’s a way of performing, attracting attention, showing off, a form of the will ...”

“... the ages have puffed up their little initiatives (what does Paragraph 59 mean, other than ‘we may be a bit more flexible about who we take, but don’t bet on it’?). Elsewhere, the language has a more sinister tinge. In the ‘Statement of Purpose’ it is declared that ‘our function is to serve scholarship, research and enterprise.’ What would ...”

“... and interesting people: Penelope Gilliatt, Lillian Hellman, Isaiah Berlin, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Harry Levin, W.H. Auden, Malraux, James Baldwin, Stravinsky, Robert Lowell etc. None of these people, however, furnishes Wilson with anything like a satisfying number of thoughtful passages in the journals. This is partly a result of misleading editing by ...”

“... King reports here, is the only surviving 18th-century African artefact associated with slavery. David Dabydeen has pointed out that the very word ‘patron’ could at this point mean both connoisseur and slave-owner. It would be intriguing to know whether the peculiar interest which Sloane had in tobacco and its paraphernalia was connected with his other ...”