“... balls, soirées, routs, race meetings and country house parties at which this purpose might be best advanced. By the time he set off for Wales and Ireland, he had abandoned the hunt. Throughout the letters, however, he seems keen to draw attention to his delight in female company, archly alluding to a brief liaison with the famous singer Henriette ...”

“... pen, a mid-century Soviet relic was enlisted to honour one of the last acts of Tsar (now Saint) Nicholas II, who founded my hometown in October 1916. From socialism to monarchism in ten days. Some of the city’s pensioners accused the local government of trying to suppress the sacred memory of the revolution. ‘Our forefathers would be turning in their ...”

“... instead of swinging from one chandelier to another ... He’s a miserable little coward and the best way of dealing with a bloody fucker like him is to get hold of him personally and give him a good beating which he won’t forget.’ This attack on Lord Beaverbrook, which must have sent a frisson of delighted horror through its listeners, was something of ...”

“... newspaper coverage, have traditionally been conducted for the benefit of the art trade. The best part of Lacey’s book is the portrait of Peter Cecil Wilson, third son of Sir Mathew ‘Scatters’ Wilson, Bart. PCW became a porter in the furniture department at Sotheby’s in 1936, was allowed to catalogue and market an important sale of antique rings ...”

“... now at Alnwick Castle, which Hale rightly sees as reminiscent of French portraiture, is surely best explained by the French ambassador’s enjoining Titian to copy a likeness that had been made previously in France. The failure to give convincing vitality to the bishop’s face is especially noticeable because of the narrative dimension that Titian has ...”

“... detractors claim that all his work is mannered and self-indulgent, and they’re right: but the best of it – a couple of ‘The Nervous Songs’, some of the sonnets, most of The Dream Songs – opens up a saving gap between a displayed self-consciousness and the poet who lurks behind it. Like Lowell, Berryman was raised in the New Critical stable. He ...”

“... as under-written. The sentences which open several of the pieces in Granta’s much trumpeted Best of Young British Novelists are plain to a fault. ‘Andy runs across the ice,’ ‘I had no time for vices,’ ‘Lisa was meeting her father for supper,’ ‘He didn’t like attending County Hall,’ ‘The first person I was in love with was called Mark ...”

“... neither can he bring himself to ignore them altogether. Habits of faith (and habits of writing best-sellers) die hard – and if there is a good story to be told, Taylor may be counted on to tell it, even when he no longer believes it to be true. Thus he begins with ‘spontaneous human combustion’, ends with survival after death, and leaves out precious ...”

“... They were painted for the hospital’s previous building during the First World War (the two best are dated 1915 and 1916), and their hushed atmosphere, tense geometry and subdued colour scheme respond to the grim anxieties of the Home Front, as well as to their original classical setting. The figures wait – for the doctor, for food, for peace. A ...”

“... it significant momentum. Ding’s second was Richárd Rapport, a long-haired Hungarian, the fifth best player in the world at the time and a grandmaster since the age of thirteen. Months earlier, Ding had jokingly suggested trying the French Defence in the forthcoming world championship, a gamble that might surprise Nepo and put him off his game. Rapport, who ...”

“... and educational privilege. The ‘king-size sheet from Liberty’s sale’ which serves as the best table-cloth at Clifton is just a prop on a stage set. Far from wishing to satirise the society which her characters may be thought of as representing, Murdoch scarcely acknowledges its existence. Her attentive gaze is fixed on deeper realities: the ...”

“... and, finally, ‘If you do not like our editorial policies and practices, then it certainly seems best if you cease to contribute.’ (They made up.)Keller put his force of personality to work, consciously fashioning his image as a critic prepared to tell it like it is (‘I am neither tactful nor tactical; on the other hand, I am truthful’; ‘I know when ...”

“... of self-denigration. But the overwhelming tendency of the novel is to ignore Yael’s view (or at best to co-opt it) and instead to snuggle down comfortably with Fima. It’s hard to pinpoint this tendency, but it seems to have something to do with the use of candour as a means of control. The novel sets out to demythologise Fima. On the one hand, by letting ...”

“... that the sort of art history and criticism he likes is ‘conversable’ and ‘sociable’. The best model, it seems to me, is provided by ...”

“... epilogue, where Oz gives us a sketch of the city of Ashdod, his ideal polis:   And what is, at best, is the city of Ashdod.   A pretty city and to my mind a good one, this Ashdod ... And she is not quite the grandiose fulfilment of the vision of the Prophets and of the dream of generations; not quite a world premiere, but simply a city on a human scale ...”