“... even the Norwegian peace-brokers, is suspected because it is an outsider. The Rajapaksa government may not have started the present round of hostilities – it was provoked by the Tigers, who seem to have used the ceasefire to regroup and rearm – but it has set the tone of discussion here, with its paranoid comments about the Tigers infiltrating the UN, the ...”

“... and his children, who seem to be inexplicably upset by Hannah, or by her not knowing them. You may begin to worry that they are her family, unrecognised and, as strangers, faintly repellent. As it turns out, you’d be wrong, which is a relief of sorts, and a lesson in not jumping to conclusions. She does have a family, however: a mother, father and ...”

“... in 1997. In March, several thousand birds died in rural chicken farms. Fowl plague was back. In May, a three-year-old boy died. It took a long time to identify the virus that killed him because it hadn’t been found in humans before. In August it was found to be the same as the chicken virus, subtype H5N1. In November there were more human cases, and by ...”

“... though never entirely of their number, was the poet, philosopher, novelist and spiritualist May Sinclair, the inauspicious subject of May Sinclair: A Modern Victorian, a serene, elegant biography by Suzanne Raitt. ‘Inauspicious’ because Sinclair, living in interesting times, contrived to spend most of her days in ...”

“... failed arithmetic past spring to my eyes at the merest glimpse of an equation. A little knowledge may be a dangerous thing, but so is a lot of knowledge that only a few magisterial types are permitted by their own obfuscations to understand. Compare and contrast a novel that misapplies quantum theory with the building and dropping of a nuclear bomb. And what ...”

“... Simpson’s much put-upon mothers would say – to notice their children; or rather, they may notice but they won’t necessarily notice what it is they’re noticing. ‘Kill,’ whispered Robin, edging past the women into the tiny front garden; ‘Die, megazord,’ and he crushed a snail shell beneath his shoe. Half hidden beneath the windowsill he ...”

“... up to the window and snout-butts the glass. Nobody screams. I wish somebody would.’ Mitchell may be more interested in producing dreamlike effects than in providing a spur to the plot; Eiji’s hazy fantasy of losing his way in a cinema is an attempt to render the spiralling confusion of dreams: ‘Each flight of stairs I expect to be the last, but it ...”

“... Are unmarried people shut out from all theatres, concerts, picture-galleries, parks and gardens? May they not walk out on every day of the week? Are they locked up all the summer time, and only let out when an east wind is blowing? Are they forced to live in one particular quarter of the town? Does Mudie refuse their subscriptions? . . . ...”

“... were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought … In the months of April-May 1948, units of the Haganah were given operational orders that stated explicitly that they were to uproot the villagers, expel them, and destroy the villages themselves.’ In a number of Palestinian villages and towns the IDF carried out organised executions ...”

“... to compromise that preceded the rise of the tougher political nationalism of today’s SNP. This may endear his book to defenders of Brownite or Cameronian union, but remains doubtful in a broader perspective. Clannic, tribal or (later) national human societies have always been essentially (and not accidentally) ‘outward-looking’, and necessarily aware ...”

“... with the US now cast in the role of sponsor? He doesn’t make it clear. The Iraqis themselves may of course – an understatement – have some say in all this, but Ricks tells his story from an exclusively American perspective. His preoccupation is with the US army and its officer corps. Representatives of other services, whether American or ...”

“... A few moments later, the visitor met Allen Dulles, the director of the CIA. ‘You, Mr Chairman, may have seen some of my intelligence reports from time to time,’ Dulles said, smiling. ‘I believe we get the same reports,’ Khrushchev replied. ‘And probably from the same people.’ ‘Maybe we should pool our efforts,’ Dulles said. The trip was ...”

“... has expressed reservations about art critics, saying they are writers rather than artists and may not have any particular visual sensitivity. The same style of objection applies to books written by non-writers, and The Descent of Man is cheerfully ramshackle, both rambling and repetitive, raiding the press and the internet for surveys and snippets without ...”

“... seem much less at ease with themselves than Titian’s sitters, and often appear melancholic. This may explain why he has been regarded as a very modern kind of painter, particularly adept at revealing his sitters’ inner lives. ‘Revealing’ is of course the wrong word to use, since we know nothing or next to nothing about any of their inner lives, but we ...”

“... weeping is never an appealing sight, but I don’t know whether anyone noticed. If they did they may have guessed the truth, which is that even for the fortunate grief comes, and there is not much anyone else can do about it. Living in the world I had entered on 18 October, I understood how pampered and oblivious I had been before; perhaps the most shocking ...”