“... again, then. Here we go. The severe outlines of Kennedy’s writing, together with its relentless self-concern, hardly seem calculated to make an immediate appeal. She does not offer the pleasures or complexities of lyrical language, and her sharp, spare sentences can suggest an alienating aggression towards both characters and readers. What might be still ...”

“... its own state. Compared to other subordinated nations, Québec already possesses large powers of self-determination, as well as great influence within the Canadian federation. First, it has been conceded by the ROC that if Québec declares unequivocally for independence it will be allowed to leave: no one can conceive of a US-style civil war, and many in the ...”

“... power that the cries of small babies have to distress. From time to time we have all had to use self-control when faced with the rage other people can create in us. But such feelings, even when acted on, are still feelings, and connect us with others. Murder is usually a social crime. Jeffrey Dahmer is extraordinary (although not alone: Nilsen’s affect ...”

“... light, and she was flustered and breathing hard.’ The dancer aims to impress, but she is also self-deluded. The poet is not. ‘When she came upstairs she sat at this table and tried to write poetry. It came very hard. When she was small, words had flown out of her like birds; now they fell back into her like stones. Their hardness seemed to lacerate ...”

“... much of a look in; it is the texts that he deploys, most elegantly, to illustrate the discourse of self-indulgence. Even then there are questions of typicality. Were the Athenians really obsessed with fish? We think so, because so much of this literature survives only in quotation, and in quotation by the great philologist of food, Athenaios. At his fantasy ...”

“... end is honest. It is also flagrantly disrespectful of other countries’ rights to sovereignty and self-determination. The Kremlin, for example, initially denied any involvement in the 2014 annexation of Crimea: Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, described the forces that seized control of the peninsula as local ‘...”

“... writers’ tumultuous, if somewhat bland, romantic travails and other difficulties (depression, self-harm, social ostracism, fainting spells, being broke, bad dads). Yet they affect the central storylines. Connell’s acceptance to NYU occasions a break with Marianne, who says, ‘I’m sure you could get funding’; Frances’s use of material from ...”

“... her friend E.R. Braithwaite, the author of To Sir, with Love (1959), a catalyst for her own later self-reckoning in Black Teacher. When she began to look for a teaching post, Gilroy was frustrated at every turn, the target of a widespread suspicion founded in an ignorance that could be described as folkloric were the baiting about cannibalism and washing not ...”

“... Manion correctly point out that feminist and lesbian scholars long disregarded or downplayed the self-definitions of people who had spent their lives insisting they were not women. Mesch cites Rachilde’s assertion that they were ‘not a feminist’ because they were ‘not a woman’. But the zeal with which Mesch and Manion take those scholars to task ...”

“... in their efforts to keep left-wing ideas out of their publications, for ‘if some measure of self-policing (or self-discipline) is not instituted, their ostensible masters may be obliged to take a more active role in the management of those institutions which, nominally at any rate, are in their charge.’ The Daily ...”

“... where Arthur Street spent his boyhood in the first decade of the 20th century was the centre of a self-sufficient community, stout in defence of the four-course rotation and despising anything shop-bought. There was a ‘spaciousness and an aura of solid wellbeing’ in this intermission between agricultural slumps. The primary concern of a large tenant ...”

“... to say that ‘food is not a commodity like others. We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves.’ There are at least two things to add here. First, developed Western countries have taken great care to maintain their ...”

“... writers wrote at all, in such difficult circumstances, vindicates writing. ‘Utterance itself was self-justifying and creative,’ he says of Mandelstam, ‘like nature.’ The dichotomy between art and life remains intact, without rendering art ineffectual. Contemplating East European faith in art, Heaney is able to say what he would not otherwise have been ...”

“... which turns out to be something charitable, because that’s what posh people do when they attempt self-sacrifice. She is soon in the stews of Lambeth, writing and reading stories to poor children. We can only hope they are better than the Duchess of Sussex’s effort – or, indeed, Budgie the Little Helicopter, Fergie’s previous bid for literary ...”

“... Council) or act as a showcase for the country’s current trends, a publicity stunt, a forum for self-criticism, a curatorial opportunity. This year’s Kenyan exhibit was withdrawn after widespread criticism that its Italian curators had chosen more Chinese artists than Kenyan ones. The 32 rooms of Enwezor’s Palazzo Centrale are centred on Das Kapital ...”