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“... tragedy. Denied the dignity of his tragic heroism, the noble Hamlet is a destructive force. In John Updike’s recent novel Gertrude and Claudius, Hamlet is still more unlovable. He is coldly manipulative, while his kingly father is reduced to a clumsy and egotistical bully. Updike is also engaged in an act of rehabilitation. But he turns his attention to ...”

“... the brain. This is what has come to be known as brain organisation theory, a concept pioneered by John Money in the 1960s. It is currently the leading explanation for the essential difference between men and women. The real world question, however, still goes back to Aristotle: do such differences legitimately naturalise the different places in which men and ...”

“... early novels were done made them look like the literary future, not just to Evelyn Waugh but to Rebecca West and Arnold Bennett – the young and the old alike – H.G. Wells, Elizabeth Bowen, Olivia Manning, Anthony Powell. In his time Gerhardie was at least as potent a literary influence in England as Hemingway, and more pervasive, more part of the new ...”

“... full account of what we currently know about the Neanderthals. It is Neanderthal-centric: Rebecca Wragg Sykes’s project is to write about Neanderthals as an end in themselves, not as a failed version of modern humanity or an evolutionary false start. She is deeply immersed in the latest archaeology on the topic. At the same time, she is an unashamed ...”

“... pairs two longish stories set in Scotland, David Craig’s ‘Jason and the Green Woman’ and John Murray’s ‘The Señor and the Celtic Cross’, which operate quite different ironies about the limits of civilised society. The latter story, told in a tormented parodic mélange of styles, recounts a tourist’s experience of sex, superstition and the ...”

“... and looking just like paint thinner or gasoline.And then there’s the aerial footage taken by John Wathen, or Hurricane Creekkeeper, that’s gone viral on YouTube, Facebook, other facets of the internet, and the media, including CNN. It shows great plumes of smoke rising from the sea, as the oil is burned off the surface. The flames are invisible but the ...”

“... Murder in the Cathedral) wrote If you make charges, Then in public I will refute them, and when Rebecca West wrote The case against most of them must have been so easily refuted that they could hardly rank at suspects, both writers could be assured that their use of refute was beyond reproach. At some point in the second half of the ...”

“... has a long tradition in Britain. Thomas Grant, in his book about the Old Bailey, Court Number One (John Murray, £10.99), gives special credit to Rebecca West, who wrote about treason and spy cases from the 1940s to the 1960s, and Sybille Bedford, whose account of the trial of Dr Bodkin Adams in 1957 is ‘generally regarded ...”

“... her independent. Independence made her Elizabeth. ‘It is by independence we live,’ she wrote. Rebecca West, who competed later with the Countess as a lover of H.G. Wells, was wrong in calling the book ‘a not too creditable early success’. There was no shortage, in the 1890s, of enigmatic, slight-seeming, best-selling novels – Beatrice Harraden’s ...”

“... and the latest drug culture. It was to cocaine (the snuffed, not the smoked variety) what John Barleycorn was to booze, what Naked Lunch was to heroin and what Dog Soldiers was to hallucinogens. Anyone who read Bright Lights, Big City could feel an expert on the modish drug of choice, even if he had never put anything stronger than Friar’s Balsam up ...”

“... On the voyage to Canada, one of my schoolmates, 12 years old, was put in charge of three-year-old Rebecca. She remembers the child clinging to a seaman throughout the trip – perhaps he reminded her of her father? Father and mother travelled out some weeks later to take charge of Rebecca: on the City of Benares. We ...”

“... characteristic have obvious affinities with sacred and profane, the icy Rowena and the sensuous Rebecca. Leafing through Clark’s plates, it seems to be Rebecca who gets the upper hand as we approach the modern era – though with notable exceptions, like the superb movie still of Greta Garbo in The Kiss. The major ...”

“... Wilson), ‘wickedly funny’ (A.S. Byatt), ‘very nourishing entertainment’ (Dame Rebecca West). The manuscript’s progress through the hands of less enthusiastic publishers has been recorded in various gossip columns. Anne Smith, editor of the Literary Review, is a canny publicist for herself and her journal. Now, at last, we have this ...”

“... their families to the coast. The inspiration behind the scheme was George Lansbury, the subject of John Shepherd’s biography, a book as meticulous as it is generous. It is nonetheless timely: just as the prison service has brown-filled this pleasant site, so, too, New Labour has trampled on the radical socialism of which Lansbury was one of the finest ...”

“... with some ugly secrets): ‘Bring him back! ... Better not.’ The dedicatee of Life Stories is Rebecca West. When one recalls how affectionately she brought her father back in The fountain overflows, one concludes that Barker is her Blakean partner, the tank that contains. She wants to write an autobiography, but is unwilling to give anything away. As she ...”