“... are accustomed to pass at short notice. It shares a border with Israel, with which it signed a peace treaty that has allowed the Israeli army great room for manoeuvre when it has invaded its neighbours. Egypt has a very close relationship with Washington, particularly when it comes to counter-terrorism, and it has provided services that dare not speak ...”

“... a plus. Lucie has been working as a snooper for two years now: ‘A kid can’t smoke a joint in peace without me personally being right up behind him … The life of their children belongs to adults of my generation, who don’t want to let their youth get away from them twice.’ Her most recent assignment is Valentine Galtan, a girl of ...”

“... Hemingway marathon, to the fling with James Gavin (hero of the 82nd Airborne), to the affair with David Gurewitsch in Cuernavaca, even the marriage to Tom Matthews in 1954 that made her so ‘plain silly happy’ at first: You see, I have chalked it up too well, and see where and how I am caught – and how tightly. Through ignorance, carelessness, pride and ...”

“... sent to Oxford to acquire British accents and a pseudo-patrician indifference to book-keeping, David Niven Oriental-style. In Mori’s time a middle-rank Foreign Ministry official was caught using secret funds to keep a string of racehorses, yachts and a mistress in a smart apartment – outraging Japanese voters worried about their jobs. Scandal followed ...”

“... soul?’ But Luísa’s lover tells Rami he admires her for coming to her rival’s house to make peace. ‘I think all women should unite with each other against the tyranny of men. If I were a woman, I’d do that.’ Rami realises she has ‘never lifted so much as a finger’ to turn fate in her direction, and soon she begins. First, she gathers the ...”

“... dream racism away. When Orr wakes up the next day everyone has turned grey. He makes Orr dream of peace on Earth. Orr’s unconscious, like a bad genie in a fairy tale, takes the instruction literally: he dreams that an alien attack on the moon unites the people of Earth against a common enemy. He asks Dr Haber: ‘What kind of monsters have you dredged up ...”

“... a scholarship in classics to Highgate School, published poems in the school magazine and set up a peace society. He developed an interest in science, and after blowing three fingers off one hand while trying to make fireworks for George V’s Silver Jubilee, turned gratefully to the study of molluscs. As a teenager, he was, in his own words, an ...”

“... rather than usurpation, and stresses the importance of a strong and competent king who could bring peace to the realm. Those who supported Hugh no doubt hoped for political advantage; they may also have decided that he would be the more effective ruler. The legitimacy of his rule was challenged, not least in its first years, when a rebellion by the rejected ...”

“... May ... Thy name they bury, having buried thee; Drones eat thy honey – thou wert the true bee. Peace keep thy soul! Middleton does not say who ‘they’ were, but his readers knew well enough who had ‘cut off’ Nashe’s livelihood. And the other poets of this fable do not fare much better. The Nightingale is, of course, raped Philomel, the archetypal ...”

“... writers who have perpetrated the most evil among men.’ If Locke has a competitor in this, it is David Hume, ‘the most culpable of these fatal writers who will not cease to damn the [18th] century in the eyes of posterity, the one who has used the most talent with the most composure to produce the most evil.’ Europe is in chaos because intellectuals like ...”

“... but a Tory government nor by the sound of it ever wants to. At Birmingham I have a session with David Edgar’s playwrights’ class, then do another ‘Our Alan’ performance for a more general audience. 26 January. Run into Tristram Powell. Andrew Devonshire (sic) has done a diary for the Spectator mentioning the memoir of Julian Jebb (edited by ...”

“... all. How far their doctrines are really relevant to Paine is queried in another recent book, by David Wilson, and it may be safer to look to the general tradition of English radicalism and dissent stemming from the 17th century: one writer drawn on by Paine is Milton. Paine had scientific interests, and took great pride in his design for an iron bridge: he ...”

“... adieus his lips are chapped) – given all these givens, one would have thought he had made his peace with his words and famous name leaving a faint trace. Compared to such beating pulsars as Mailer or Bellow, he seemed resigned to the indifferent clockwork of the cosmos (perhaps the best anecdote in Kaplan’s book is when Bellow asks if he can introduce ...”

“... on plates at the door? The señor and señora are preparing them to starve.’ The title story in David Leavitt’s Family Dancing begins with a graduation party, flower arrangement and girls in starched tunics, handing trays around. But like the other stories, ‘Family Dancing’ soon scratches its polished surfaces and considers the rough edges of Middle ...”

“... of a bedside table defaced by cigarette burns. This fantasy has some bearing on the task facing David Sylvester in writing this marvellous book. He has discovered a room behind the wardrobe. In 1912, Magritte, 13 at the time, lost his mother who, after several unsuccessful attempts at suicide, managed to drown herself. According to Magritte’s ...”