“... atmosphere’. His father, a captain in the York and Lancasters, was killed at Ypres in May 1915. His maternal grandmother, Emily, was ‘a great psychosomatic virtuoso’. And his mother Kathleen’s ‘intense emotional needs were to crack through Isherwood’s youth like a bolt of lightning’. Like many emerging novelists, Isherwood appeared to ...”

“... a months-long curfew. McKinsey’s global managing partner, Bob Sternfels, recently said that we may be living in ‘India’s century’. Praising Modi for ‘implementing policies that have modernised India and supported its growth’, the economist and consultant Nouriel Roubini described the country as a ‘vibrant democracy’. But it is becoming harder ...”

“... fewer friends than you went in with – and forget arranging a date with the initial interrogator.May I then suggest that anyone who still thinks that our treatment of animals is basically in the moral clear, especially in the areas of experimentation and food production, sit down and study Peter Singer’s book: then they can come and tell me why a ...”

“... a monumental pair of binoculars as the entrance to the offices of a large advertising agency. This may suit the client, but it manipulates the rest of us, and reduces architecture to a 3-D billboard. The Pop dimension remains strong in his work, even when disguised as a symbolic use of otherwise abstract materials, colours and forms; and it came as no surprise ...”

“... vessels such as the Zuwarah, sent back to Italy for maintenance in 2012, were returned to Libya in May 2017. When asked why so many patrol vessels were being deployed to Libya, EU officials said (or complained) that the Libyan coastguard was struggling with maintenance, which left its seaworthy vessels stretched beyond capacity.As the Zuwarah approached, Even ...”

“... hankering’ that the writer owns to and the reader shares is nothing new, and while Flaubert may incorporate its consequences into his text with a greater degree of subtlety, Cooper’s novels weave it across a broader canvas and with a knowingness which generates an air of good-humoured tolerance in which to investigate one’s own feelings of ...”

“... importance the court will attach to its impact in the particular case’. The Human Rights Act may still be law but it is the government’s judgment of the public interest that is decisive.There​ are further indications that the Supreme Court’s approach to human rights has changed. Restrictive rules on standing – sufficient involvement to have the ...”

“... Pirate tales were so appealing – and have proved so enduring – that Graeber thinks they may have constituted ‘the most important form of poetic expression produced by that emerging North Atlantic proletariat whose exploitation laid the ground for the industrial revolution’: a kind of anarcho-fabulous counter-literature which enthralled the ...”

“... saw it, the first fruits of their labour, nevertheless did subsist for a very long time: but they may not survive much longer. Agribusiness doesn’t need peasants, and capitalism needs a consumer culture, to which peasants cannot belong and remain peasants. Nineteenth-century economic pressures forcibly converted peasantries into urban ...”

“... of the Communist states. What are they? The right to work does not exist: full employment may be a goal but whether it is attainable depends on the state of the market. To the Italian journalist who sneered that it was extraordinary that the East should find the West so attractive when the Eighties were the most anti-social decade in recent ...”

“... affinities of stories, as it is itself about. The publisher seems to be a bit afraid that people may think Haroun simply a children’s book. It is certainly that, even in being full of the adult jokes, tricks and ingenuities of the sort children enjoy. But it is true that there are hints and implications, presumably included for the benefit of their ...”

“... with the top frogs in the entertainment industry. But there’s no way of checking on that.) They may both be green and imaginary, but apart from that the two frogs are very different. The frog-as-prince is the embodiment of a profoundly anti-frog message: to be a frog is to be punished, to be sentenced to a season in purgatory. As with most fairy ...”

“... it. Its practitioners were largely unaware that ‘there is no limit’ to what the novelist ‘may attempt as an executant – no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes’. A new novel by Julian Barnes is a reminder that – up to a point, anyway – the situation has changed. Without being defiantly weird or consciously trying ...”

“... live is far more important as a cultural affront than it is as an economic injury.’ Capitalism may deliver the goods, but it does so in a way that undermines the self-esteem and capacity for self-realisation of most people. The inherent ugliness of capitalism ensures that there is a perpetual impetus towards socialism, but contemplation of actually ...”

“... which includes self-revelation, by the most civilised means. That sounds portentous, but it may indicate something about the nature of inexplicably good moments in literary art, like Powell’s Widmerpool observing with approval: ‘Why, mother, you are wearing your bridge coat.’ Black humour is a misnomer and indeed a contradiction, because like all ...”