“... Runciman applies the concept alike to Greek cities and the Roman Republic, Swiss cantons, North Italian towns and the Icelandic commonwealth. Here the institutional resemblances, as well as differences, do indeed constitute a productive field for comparison. But however cognate the political fact of a free citizenry, is it plausible to claim that Rome ...”

“... finds not only the usual academical drones and poseurs, but some touted names in contemporary North American literary criticism and theory: Eve Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Jonathan Goldberg, Judith Fetterley, Jean Schwind, Elizabeth Ammons. Acocella takes no prisoners. She is queen of the devastating citation, and more ...”

“... the system. A few weeks after I first met Andy and Martha, I visited Michael at his home in North-West London. He showed me a letter sent by the Ministry of Defence to his late mother, Mary, in 2011 and signed by the defence secretary at the time, Liam Fox. ‘I apologise for Majella’s death and offer you my heartfelt sympathy,’ it reads. ‘On ...”

“... books’ misdirection, being at a loose end just made her bad-tempered and difficult. In the far north what few polar bears could be assembled hung about waiting for Her Majesty, but when she did not appear loped off to an ice floe that held more promise. Logs jammed, glaciers slid into the freezing waters, all unobserved by the royal visitor, who kept to ...”

“... this was company she aspired to join. She pursued her ambition with fervour: graduation from North Hollywood High School at the age of 15, a degree from the University of Chicago, graduate study and a Master of Arts at Harvard, a fellowship at St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she attended lectures by Isaiah Berlin and had classes with A.J. Ayer, Stuart ...”

“... crowds of sick people in corridors. Four hospitals – Walsall Manor in the West Midlands; the North Middlesex in Enfield, North London; Hillingdon, the closest emergency hospital to Heathrow Airport; and the James Paget in Great Yarmouth – declared their beds 100 per cent full on more than half the days in that winter ...”

“... feed seven and, soon, nine or ten billion people. Most of this population is poor by European or North American standards and doesn’t constitute any automatic constituency for ecological restraint. Governments and corporations, for their part, have little incentive to slow, much less stop the general destruction. The collective activity of humanity is ...”

“... to Russia’s Diplomatic Corps Administration, two floors of a Georgian terraced house in North London bought with my then wife, a post-divorce rental in the East End, and now, my third tilt at home ownership, a flat in a converted school in Bethnal Green (Pat Quinn’s old school, as it happens).I don’t expect to find myself living in a council ...”

“... of the Queen Mother; George VI attended her wedding. Marten’s father had been a page to Queen Elizabeth II. The papers ran stories about the once carefree aristocrat who had grown up on the £34 million Crichel Estate in Dorset but had suddenly cut off all contact with her family and friends, and dropped out of her course at East 15 Acting ...”

“... in the poor country regions of the South like Mississippi and in the vast urban sprawls of the North and West. There are children who get no food during the day, no measles shots, no health care. The offer of prenatal health care would save multitudes of wanted babies, and give them and their mothers a chance at life. The pro-lifers are not against ...”

“... money, the English five or ten or twenty quid note. On one side we have a famous dead person: Elizabeth Fry or Charles Darwin or Adam Smith, depending on whether it’s a five or ten or twenty. On the other we have a picture of the queen, and just above that the words ‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of’, and then the value of the ...”

“... and dark is the abyss of the theatre.’ On the night his play closed James wrote to the actress Elizabeth Robins: ‘It has been a great relief to feel that one of the most detestable incidents of my life has closed.’ On 22 February he wrote to his brother: ‘Oscar Wilde’s farce which followed Guy Domville is, I believe, a great success – and with ...”

“... yet name: it’s a tantalising guide, innuendo just short of the really useful statement. On the north side of the Thames ‘there are two pubs which attract queers with more esoteric interests’ – i.e. ‘the leather, plastic and rubber cult’ – but the ‘homosexual motor-cyclist enthusiasts’ who might like to drop in are left scanning the shore ...”

“... have been then about forty. He was born in 1900. I think I was about twelve when we moved to the North. After the war he was on short contracts all around the place and was rarely at home. Then – in 1951 – came this opportunity to get a longer contract in Darlington, County Durham. So he moved the whole family up there and proceeded to die less than a ...”

“... and a postmortem arranged.Nine hours earlier, Merope and I had been in the ambulance that sped north through the city to GOSH. I held Martha’s head in my hands; her eyes were taped shut, her body was swollen and discoloured. Now we took a taxi back to King’s to pick up possessions from her cubicle on Rays of Sunshine ward – presents she’d been ...”