“... wrote so eloquently. He gave a cautious reply: ‘I think they probably had very bad breath.’ He may have been right about that, but it would be wrong to infer that this was something which didn’t bother them. The men and women of the Middle Ages may have had a greater aversion to unpleasant body odours than their ...”

“... Christi (a place once risibly proposed to tourists as ‘the Italy of America’), which from May to September has an average summer simmer index temperature of 100.1° F. Measured in terms of deaths and physical damage, there has been no more powerful natural force over the last few decades in the US than heatwaves. The National Climatic Data Center list ...”

“... Kimmer’s deep vulgarity is clear from the start, when she phones Talcott with the news that she may be nominated to the Federal bench: ‘This is the happiest day of my life,’ burbles my wife of nearly nine years on what will shortly become one of the saddest days of mine. ‘I see,’ I answer, my tone conveying my hurt. ‘Oh, Misha, grow up. I’m ...”

“... in love is one that I haven’t written about nearly as much as I want to.’ Though this book may seem to be another attempt at it, she prefers to talk around her subject, linking her stories through something slightly different. ‘What on earth is this feeling that somehow things have to connect or . . . have to be part of a larger whole?’ she asked ...”

“... is probably why her book does not attempt a full assessment of his abilities as a commander. It may be for the same reason that there is no serious exploration of the tension, which she has clearly observed, between divergent contemporary perceptions of him. On the one hand, he inspired the comment ‘an Englishman gone Italian is the devil ...”

“... this authorial decision, the texture of the writing becomes altogether less interesting, and this may be a reason why the novel seems to be, though only by the standards Ishiguro has set himself, a failure. I open it quite at random and read the first sentences to meet my eye: What with one thing and another, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Tommy for the ...”

“... going out on the town with an elusive companion called Gloria, whom Al is unable to see and who may or may not be real. Indeed, one of the book’s destabilising effects is to call into question what is real and what isn’t. Al’s world is populated by beings who are immaterial, yet exist: such as the little old lady ...”

“... main narrative of Fever and Spear, for all the narrator’s insistence that ‘anything you say may be used against you,’ or his harping on the phrase ‘Keep quiet, then save yourself.’ The betrayal of Marías’s father by a friend in 1939, relayed here with minimal fictional disguise, is the grounds for building a monumental thesis on the belief that ...”

“... his former comrades, coming and going, but can’t make out their conversation, strain as he may. Classical sources, such as Plutarch’s essay on the subject, were equally disapproving. The damaging associations of curiosity with magic, an arrogant desire to probe nature’s secrets in order to augment human power, persisted through the ...”

“... as he prophetically put it in Julius Caesar.’ However suspiciously convenient this structure may sound, and however paradoxical and question-begging Shapiro’s conclusion, it makes for a terrific read – there are few other biographical studies of Shakespeare as easily consumed at a single sitting – and 1599 displays a range of reading and inquiry ...”

“... in a way they would not have if the perpetrators had been, say, Russian soldiers. While there may be some truth in this, it was the allegation that sexual violence was systematically used as a ‘weapon of war’ by Hamas that played a key role in flipping the duty of denial. The extent of the sexual crimes committed on 7 October remains unclear, as does ...”

“... of myself as white. In an era in which many people lament the tyranny of identity politics, it may seem healthy that the state should discourage racial or ethnic identification.Yet since returning to France twenty years later, I have become disillusioned with French pseudo-universalism. Official colour blindness did not prevent the National Rally, a party ...”

“... or leaving it on her doorstep.Tóibín’s early novels aren’t notable for high drama. They may explore death and grief but it’s the texture of ordinary life that sustains them: card games, house renovations, gossip, waiting for the postman, walking in the drizzle, shopping and drinking. There’s no lack of quotidian substance in Long Island, from ...”

“... old programmes with the names of the amateurs given in full – ‘Dr W.G. Grace’, ‘Mr P.B.H. May’ – while the professionals are listed curtly as ‘Hutton’ or, at best, ‘Hutton, L.’? This was, of course, an utterly bogus distinction, as the leading amateurs were always paid juicy retainers. When Grace led a tour to Australia in 1873, he was ...”

“... these entities any less real, but it does make studying them fiendishly complicated. Climatology may be the ultimate proxy science. Weather is easy to measure and describe. It is local and short-term: whether it’s going to be rainy or sunny for the next few days; today’s temperature and barometer readings; tomorrow’s likely wind speed and ...”