“... he says in his autobiography, ‘that the world’s end was at the edge of the horizon and that a day’s journey was able to find it’. He thought that when he reached the brink of the world he would find a large pit, and would be able to look down and see the secrets of the universe. He spent the whole day rambling among ...”

“... singer and activist whose rich, deep gospel voice adorns Staple Singers numbers like ‘Uncloudy Day’. They had met in New York in the early 1960s and, in her words, ‘court[ed] awhile’. These pages are alive with mental movement, as poets’ drafts always are, and it occurs to me that these multiple studio takes – all these ...”

“... his occasional quotations from Wordsworth. A famous photograph shows him in country clothes with a robin perched on his hat. This lifelong rusticity led many to label him an insular amateur of limited ambition. As incoming prime minister in 1905, Henry Campbell-Bannerman was reluctant to make Grey foreign secretary because of ‘his ignorance of foreign ...”

“... history obsessives, novelists (Hilary Mantel, Sarah Waters, Madeline Miller), classicists (Robin Lane Fox, Bettany Hughes), historians (Tom Holland), who salute her muscular resurrections of the classical world, and gay men who see her as a pioneer in her writing about homosexual relationships. Along with hundreds of other gay men, many of them ...”

“... Fair, dispensing justice to the just. Pearson shades the portrait to reveal the Twins as a pair of Robin Hoods, by way of Papa Doc Duvalier. The difference between Pearson and the B-team that followed in his footsteps is that he became a ghost before the corpse had died. His name is above the title: in yellow print, superimposed over the famous (and ...”

“... of days of this, Louis had the churches on the route closed until Henry had passed by. The next day, Henry turned up on time, declaring that he could not possibly attend the talks because all the churches were closed, which must mean that Paris was under a papal interdict. Louis confessed his ruse, and asked Henry why he insisted on hearing so many ...”

“... portly practitioner is unlikely to have sought the informed consent of either Christopher Robin or his parents before he gave him what goes for a cold in the nose and some more for a cold in the head. Nor, probably, would he have done so before performing a tonsillectomy (which may be why a whole generation has been pointlessly deprived of this ...”

“... her hand. Low cloud obscures the hilltops in the background. In the words of the art historian Robin Nicholson, ‘this is an image of complete hopelessness, of lassitude and despair and, in the case of the shepherd, an element of stoic indifference.’People leave places for different reasons. In Ramsay’s poem, a young man is leaving both his West ...”

“... and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day, vowed in a comment on a YouTube video that ‘Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.’) Feminist commentators were quick to point out what should have been obvious: that no woman was obligated to have sex with Rodger; that his sense of sexual entitlement was ...”

“... before the Civil War, but hardly one touched on the great constitutional controversies of the day. Far from articulating a concern that monarchy might be growing absolutist, he seemed worried that the Crown was losing its grip (in particular that the Royal Supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs was being systematically eroded by high-flying ...”

“... naturally in these channels; he wrote effortlessly, turning out as many as four or five songs a day or jotting down in the morning dances that he had improvised at the piano the evening before. It was a protected environment, providing support, status, local success and feedback. Within this Gemeinschaft he came to maturity as a composer and it gave him ...”

“... far beyond the media. Sir John Hunt, a former cabinet secretary, broke cover as early as election day 1983 to voice the discontents of the mandarins:In the absence in our system of a chief executive with his own supporting staff, a ‘hole in the centre’ of government was perceived which an overworked cabinet seemed incapable of fulfilling. It was widely ...”

“... tone more false, the posturing more dishonest: ‘Potto said he was drawing you a picture – 3 robin red breasts against the moon – but its still unfinished. (Did you know that he has taken up art, to cure his heart? Neglect broke it.)’ With Ethel (her ‘uncastrated cat’) her relationship was more adult, had less fantasy in it, but also much less ...”

“... when I was older I saw Bankswood pictures: this photograph or similar ones, perhaps taken that day, perhaps weeks earlier, or weeks later. In the 1950s photographs often didn’t come out at all, or were so fuzzy that they were thrown away. What remains as a memory, though the colour has bled away, is the fast scudding of clouds, and the rush of sound over ...”

“... Schama’s advice helpfully prescribed in the blurb – ‘take a dose of the book at least once a day and retire early to bed’ – will sleep easy. In fact, two narratives are here in constant tension. One is an up to date, deeply informed, but ultimately traditional, history of medicine, though mercifully short on the genealogy, on who begot whom, which ...”