“... new fact or surprising interpretation. I went back to an earlier biography from my Bowie shelf – Christopher Sandford’s Bowie: Loving the Alien (1996) – to compare a page or two, and found I couldn’t put it down. Sandford is especially good on Bowie in the 1980s and 1990s. He deals with all the stuff that fancier or more fanciful authors wouldn’t ...”

“... been studying philosophy, tweets: ‘TRUTH IS A FORCE OF NATURE!’*The director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, earlier told the Judiciary Committee that ‘Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections’ in the future, and Mueller says: ‘It wasn’t a single attempt. They’re doing it as we sit here.’ A report by the ...”

“... bully boy, reputed to be the toughest kid in the park, and with a title to boot, something like ‘king’ or ‘prince’, along those lines. My brother went out of his way to find the boy, who was sitting against a tree surrounded by admirers, and said something provocative to him, and as the kid made ready to stand up, my brother hammered him, snapping the ...”

“... which, as the judge explained, ran counter to the accused man’s beliefs. It turned out that Christopher Elman, the defendant, was a sovereign citizen.I’d only vaguely heard of this newish category of far-right dissidence, an offshoot of the militia and Patriot movements, that viewed the constitution as a fraudulent or (at best) purely commercial ...”

“... just raping to raping and murdering.’Ted Bundy was responsible for more than thirty murders; Christopher Wilder abducted twelve women and girls in 1984 and killed eight of them. The prosecution psychologist suggested not only that Gordon would do it again, but that there was no proof he hadn’t done it before. In her statement, the victim asked the ...”

“... to her relationship with the subject, a close friend whom for many years she knew and admired – Christopher Sykes on Waugh is the nearest parallel? In such cases, affection can shape the compass of a biography, personal knowledge lighting up but also limiting what can be said. Perhaps there are traces of that here; but, on the whole, in the warmth and grace ...”

“... that day so they went there and met up with their friend Muna Ali. They all went to Falafel King afterwards to have lemonade. They just sat at the window watching the world go by, and they discussed Ramadan. Naseem promised to come to Grenfell Tower so they could break their fast together and make her famous cheese pie. ‘It had been such a big iftar ...”

“... like that.’ ‘And how did that change?’ Ramona said a single word: ‘Rob.’ The days in St Christopher Place were almost languorous. We would bring coffee back to the flat and spread out, and I’d try to build a picture of how he did what he said he did. We put up whiteboards and he bamboozled me with maths. Sometimes he would write at the board for ...”