“... as publishers have found it pays to have five separate editions of Barchester Towers in print, but no Meredith or Lytton, so it pays to commission the same big familiar lives time and again. Because of the duplication biographers are keener than ever to find fresh angles. Few have new evidence, everyone has a new line. What emerges is less a contest as to ...”

“... determinism, individual freedom, the nature of life after death, seem to announce that these are no longer our concerns, at least not in this way, in these contexts, in these words and forms. The book seemed far more remote from me than any Victorian fiction, partly no doubt because of my awareness of the factitiousness of ...”

“... chews up its workforce faster even than the pits. But Arthur doesn’t take it lying down: no longer a sportsman but still a man. Storey adapted his original novel for Lindsay Anderson, who directed the film, but he curtailed the ending. On the printed page, after Machin’s legs have ‘betrayed’ him on the pitch, there is a final scene in the ...”

“... from ‘Trace l’inégal palindrome. Neige. Bagatelle, dira Hercule. Le brut repentir, cet écrit né Perec’, to, a full five pages later: ‘ce repentir, cet écrit ne perturbe le lucre: Haridelle, ta gabegie ne mord ni la plage ...”

“... him had on a silvery basket-ball warm-up jacket with CELTICS written across the chest ... He was no more than four or five steps away ... powerfully built ... His jacket was open ... a white T-shirt ... tremendous chest muscles ... a square face ... wide jaws ... a wide mouth ... What was that look? ... Hunter! ... Predator!’ Sherman panics, jumps in the ...”

“... he took hold of my ear. I stood in the corner near the insect case, remembering my bike. I had the John Bull Puncture Repair Kit in my pocket: glass paper, rubber solution, patches, chalk and grater, spare valves. I was ‘riding dead’ – freewheeling downhill with my arms folded and my eyes shut, looking Mr Ray in the eye. Every time I looked round he ...”

“... desk, was a more engaging and dramatic affair than the traditional podium-based and town-hall meeting style debates that preceded it. Not that it broke the pattern of the series as a whole. Although the final debate saw more disagreement on substance (and more detail about policy), the most memorable section dealt with the campaign itself. As ...”

“... was more attractive than ever. Its rise was unstoppable, its nature always mutable. There was no crisis from which it did not emerge invigorated. John Nash designed Piccadilly Circus as a rond-point for his great picturesque town plan leading up Regent Street to the Regent’s Park. The view south was to culminate in ...”

“... of freelance delegates, all capable of keeping their eyes to the front, on the platform – no droolers, no crisp packets. By Saturday afternoon, a certain mid-term weariness is evident (so many readings survived, so many still to come); the post-traumatic shock of being allowed into the showpiece. King’s ...”

“... apartment in Tel Aviv, and while struggling to put on my shoes, cursed the moment I failed to say no. The bottom right of my abdomen was aching. My rendezvous with Israel’s biggest strategic threats looked like a very bad idea. I could not have believed that by the end of the day I would have rather had open-heart surgery than listen to any further analysis ...”

“... Put law in the context of a novel, and it reveals something about its nature, since it has no choice but to submit to the movement and equivocations of words. Schlink’s writing is oddly circular and self-referring, as if there is a problem that he can’t get away from, or that won’t go away. Homecoming can be read as an extended footnote to The ...”

“... exhibited to an eager public in thirty venues over the course of the following year. There was no apparent guilt about this deception, no winking admission, at least in public: Fenton simply wanted to play a part in the story. ‘Photographic Van’ (1855) ‘Eighth Hussars Cooking Hut’ (1855) ‘General ...”

“... It’s been two years since the last one, so it must be time for a new book of poems by John Ashbery. Like the old James Bond films, Ashbery’s late instalments arrive punctually, and you buy your ticket knowing what to expect: a suave cartoon with ridiculous gadgets, clever one-liners and last-minute escapes. ‘So Long, Santa’, the penultimate poem in Ashbery’s previous collection, A Worldly Country (2007), worried that ‘it will come round again/and we won’t be ready ...”

“... insurance policies on him too. Seven months later, Dorcas herself was found dead in a car. She had no serious injuries apart from a fractured hyoid bone, which can sometimes indicate strangulation but can also be broken during autopsies; the medical examiner recorded ‘acute respiratory distress’ as the cause of death. Insurance policies? Check: 17 of ...”

“... during this period. This means we can trace the genesis of the poem with far greater precision.No less important, the editors include almost every letter documenting the protracted negotiations that led to the publication of The Waste Land in the Dial (circulation: 9600), then the foremost literary journal in America. As part of the final publication ...”