“... the wayfaring man ceaseth.’ Rural England left nothing like the same mark on posterity as She or King Solomon’s Mines, but he said it cost him more labour than anything else.This wasn’t the first time that arable farmers had fallen victim to abrupt economic and technological change against which they proved powerless, both individually and ...”

“... ambition and postponed satisfaction, duty and patriotism.’ It is on this aspect that Anthony King and Ivor Crewe concentrate in the Skidelsky collection. Margaret Roberts moved from her Anglo-Poujadist origins via Oxford, the lab and the bar to eventual leadership and Gaullist ambitions, more honoured in rhetoric than in achievement. The grocer’s ...”

“... technically these are crimes punishable by imprisonment, flogging or worse. When Abdul Aziz became king after conquering the Hejaz in 1926, he allowed Jeddah’s foreign community to import alcohol openly: he was forced to end this concession when the British consul, who used to serve drinks to his Saudi guests, was shot dead by a drunken young prince. Since ...”

“... essay in Harper’s magazine the young novelist Jonathan Franzen declares Pynchon a personal hero. David Foster Wallace moves beyond admiration to adulation – if not, to put it more plainly, outright imitation. It is, in fact, a virtuoso performance that has eclipsed its progenitor: Wallace out-Pynchons Pynchon, and his third book, Infinite Jest, may well be ...”

“... process, the first portrayer of society in terms that Adam Smith might and Karl Marx did approve. David Brown makes the academic case admirably. He begins by modestly disclaiming originality: he is developing insights put forward by others in recent years, and only applying them more carefully to a selection of the major novels. This is a service which it ...”

“... It has long been accepted that neither the Union of Crowns of 1603, which saw the Scottish King James VI move south to London, nor the Treaty of Union of 1707 served to cancel out Scottish distinctiveness. In educational, ecclesiastical, intellectual and legal terms, and not only those, Scotland has always retained significant ...”

“... twenty years after her death, still drew the crowds. Last year Prince Charles came higher than David Gandy and David Beckham in GQ’s rankings for best-dressed Briton. The queen has been a global celebrity longer than anyone anywhere.The contract between the royal family and the nation thus relies on a curious bargain ...”

“... this hotchpotch of a party will expire before the next general election. Incidentally, how much David Owen must be regretting that the SDP is still alive. If he had remained in the Labour Party nothing could have prevented his becoming its leader. Perhaps the Executive Committee of the Labour Party could dispatch a telegram saying: ‘Come back, ...”

“... trenchant objections to Tolstoy was that he had failed to understand the function of the Fool in King Lear. The Fool is ‘integral’ to the play, Orwell insisted, both as chorus and as a ‘foil to Lear’s frenzies’ (which are, as he points out, frenzies of renunciation). Peter Davison, general editor of the 20-volume Complete Works, felt that Orwell ...”

“... to teenagers across the country (at almost the same time, Michael Gove was sending copies of the King James Bible, with a foreword by himself, to every school in England). The government also passed a law allowing it to appoint judges even if the opposition disagreed, and seven judges loyal to Fidesz duly joined the Constitutional Court. Orbán called this ...”

“... negligent in not spotting that Baker’s adjusted gradient would spoil his splendid vista along King’s Way. But there were many redeeming features: the authentic and unrivalled synthesis of East and West; the brilliant fusion of public grandeur and private domesticity; and the astonishing vision of the massive, horizontal house floating effortlessly on ...”

“... classes would soon have to live without. Six or seven years ago, only Alfred Jarry’s immortal King Ubu could have entertained the idea of the Polish State Symphony Orchestra touring 13 English towns and cities with a programme featuring a slow-motion 50-minute ‘symphony’ by a dissident composer whose name was unknown outside his native Poland. In that ...”

“... and corporations. The authors are keen to let us know that their proposal was backed by David Cameron and presented to business leaders at Davos. But leaders change, and you wonder what a Special Economic Zone backed by Donald Trump or Theresa May might look like. Either Betts and Collier have found a brilliant way to harness the dynamism and ...”

“... the award in absentia, the absence of the other being the chief pleasure for each. This is where David Fincher’s new film, Mank, briefly in American cinemas last November and now available on Netflix, discreetly ends.The film was written by Fincher’s father, Jack, who died in 2003. Fincher had been planning to make it right after The Game (1997), one of ...”

“... The song​  we hear at the beginning of David Leitch’s film Bullet Train is the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’. It’s a good song and all too relevant, but by the time the movie’s plot gets rolling it sounds more like a fragile wish than any sort of programme. ‘Fate is a name for my bad luck,’ a leading character says ...”