“... Now comes Scott Hicks’s Shine, an equally arty but commercially viable biopic about a man – David Helfgott (played by Geoffrey Rush, Noah Taylor and Alex Rafalowicz) – who is abnormally inarticulate. Helfgott’s very first words are: ‘Kissed them all, I kissed them all, always kissed cats, puss-cats, kissed ...”

“... questions directly, or take on important tasks. Quite the contrary: Coetzee’s career seems to be moving off in the direction of mystification and whimsy. It is disorienting. One of the hallmarks of his writing over the years, one of the most appealing things about it, has been its clarity – alienated, almost mathematical. Thoughts are pursued ...”

“... i.m. David Douglas, 1798-1834 Accompanied by eagles, David Douglas trecked Through forests and rivers in search of seed. Wet or wounded, he remained undaunted: His roots in Scone, his crown outside. The Indians called him ‘grassman’, Watched him paddle his own canoe ...”

“... for months producing a package of proposals either popular enough to win votes or so prosaic as to be dropped without penalty if Parliament runs out of time. On the direct and specific instructions of Number 10, ministers are preparing executive decisions (money to be spent, promises to ...”

“... he wrote and added: ‘I share the general view about paying respect to Unknown Soldiers.’ David had been a soldier himself, or at any rate done National Service, in Hong Kong, and probably had more sympathy for army life than most LRB contributors. Here he is, in a review of George Spater’s Life of Cobbett, brushing aside Hazlitt’s remarks about ...”

“... some more information about your school education, for example, or your family background, may be useful.’ Coetzee, who was 33 and a lecturer in the University of Cape Town’s English department, replied: The information you suggest suggests that I settle for a particular identity I should feel most uneasy in. A few words about my schooling, for ...”

“... as has Scarlett Johansson. Unusual biopics, of course, since they contend that it’s better to be remembered for what you failed to do than for what you did. ‘Zelda did not succeed as a writer because she was brainwashed into believing that she was ill and that her art came out of her illness, not her brilliance, so much so that she really became ...”

“... United States it was only some years later that it became possible to broach the subject. Today, by contrast, a scarred identity earns almost universal respect. Peter Singer’s Pushing Time Away reflects this shift. He used to be, he says, far too busy writing his philosophy to bother with his grandfather. It was only ...”

“... extends to its past. Even to name this land is fraught with pitfalls. An easy choice would be to call it ‘the Holy Land’, but some may think that evasive, and when I have used other, more specific names in my books I have had to deal with some aggressively critical mail. In order to understand why the excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa are so ...”

“... David Jones was staying in the Chelsea flat of the BBC’s Assistant Director of Programme Planning, Harman Grisewood, as the bombs fell on London in the autumn of 1940. During one raid, a near miss blew a bus off course; it went through the window of Sainsbury’s on the King’s Road. ‘I was going out to see if I could do anything,’ Grisewood reported ...”

“... or railroad millionaires, portrayed within massive gilt frames themselves – looked pained by the chatter. The rooms were very high and lit only with wall lights and standard lamps with red shades. It was as if the dark area above were filled with humming birds and rooks and the occasional wild parakeet. The doctor goes through to the bar, which ...”

“... of Melton Constable, one of the finest Charles II houses in England and listed grade one, is to be served with a repairs notice and compulsory purchase order ... if ...’ The handsome façade illustrated above this caption from the Times of 31 December 1985 might have been an appropriate frontispiece to The past is a foreign country had the order been ...”

“... One evening in December 1975 David Plante called on his friend, the novelist Jean Rhys, who was staying in a hotel in South Kensington: ‘a big dreary hotel’, she said, ‘filled with old people whom they won’t allow to drink sweet vermouth’. She was sitting in what the receptionist called ‘the pink lounge’, wearing a pink hat ...”

“... town and return with a paper that augmented the Sunday Post – delivered to the door that morning by the village newsagent – and its claustrophobic worldview formed fifty years before in Presbyterian Dundee. Where the Observer’s wider and obviously more up-to-date perspective came from I had no idea; the kind of smart remark that said it was a paper ...”

“... David Arkell calls his biography Looking for Laforgue and he has undoubtedly found him. Without attempting what is popularly labelled ‘official’ biography, Arkell’s informal portrait is so convincing that it is hard to see an official biography adding more than superfluous detail. He brings us close to the living temper of a poet who is still fairly unknown to English-speakers but who, through his impact on T ...”