“... audience, of a sort of conniving in his own cultishness, which they also dislike. Certainly they may complain that these two bits of prose, put together, boil down to no more than whimsy: for how can they apply, in one case, to a work of Science Fiction, and in the other to a collection of essays and speeches (especially as Vonnegut seems to be saying that ...”

“... traditional’ works of fiction – ‘granny novels’. Who are these granny novelists? one may ask. Although it is free enough with the Rosencrantzes and Guildensterns present at the Guildhall on the night of 16 October 1990, Bradbury’s novel is overcome with amnesia when it comes to the names of the half-dozen Hamlets at the centre of things or the ...”

“... or when wrapped in a European reputation, such as Garbo’s or Dietrich’s. Citizen Kane may not have been the first film to break through this cloying curtain of snobbery, self-satisfaction and ignorant parochialism, but never had an American movie so brashly demonstrated that Hollywood could now no longer be a dirty word. Here at last was the ...”

“... that the modes can’t be up to much if somebody else can take them over so easily. Be that as it may, it turns out that the three modes scarcely even begin to jibe, whereupon the awed Professor Booth gives forth plangent threnodies, of which the following is merely a sample: ‘Regardless of whether Ronald Crane finds any one sonnet or an entire sequence to ...”

“... 19s 6d, but he reckoned it a good day’s work for East Hoathly. The clear profit to the parish may have been less than it looks. Parkes and Vinal had already begun proceedings to marry, and in fact on 23 October had the banns called a second time, when a woman in the congregation forbade them. The poor girl, whose name was Anne Stevenson, declared that ...”

“... in the Second World War he conquered his own nature and showed a sharp eye for an indiscretion. He may have recalled that, not once but twice between the wars, sigint was compromised by Conservatives. The first time, Curzon did so (the Times had no scruples about revealing it), and the Russians did not notice. The second time, Baldwin read out the contents of ...”

“... happened to turn up in Cambridge. They usually tried to be reassuring. Keynes wrote to Vanessa in May 1929 that ‘Lytton thinks that the young lack blood and it would be better if they cared more about politics and less about aesthetics; however we all agree that Julian is miles the best of the younger generation.’Strachey might well have come to this ...”

“... assassinates your marja in the middle of the bazaar, or crushes him underfoot, the Iranian police may not arrest him,’ he thundered. But ‘if someone runs over a dog belonging to an American, he will be prosecuted.’ A week later, Khomeini was expelled to Turkey. A year after that, he moved to a seminary in Najaf, in Iraq. There he set up a network of ...”

“... in and tie the knot at San Francisco City Hall during the very brief legal window that opened in May that year (after the California Supreme Court ruled that the existing state ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional) and ended – abruptly – in November, when Proposition 8, a rogue right-wing initiative intended to outlaw gay marriage in California ...”

“... Institutes and, though he was apparently free of Calvinist guilt, his moods of black depression may have owed something to that unforgiving literature. He was a rebellious boy, given to impish pranks and easily bored – both lifelong traits. After devising ways to hide drawing pins in the chairs of unsuspecting friends, and walking out of Dalhousie ...”

“... shale production and with rapid advances in fuel-cell technology in the offing, oil revenues may never again cover state expenditure. The kingdom has no choice but to diversify its economy. Young Saudis, who constitute the majority, have been particularly enthusiastic about Mohammad’s transformation of an ultra-conservative sheikhdom into a ...”

“... displaying Rhodesian military regalia. For the wider American conservative movement, white power may have been a useful dog off the leash when it came to unofficially fighting far-flung communist insurgencies, but it has also been a liability. Faced with the reality of a multiracial America, the mainstream Republican Party has mostly been wary of making ...”

“... birdwatcher who crossed paths with a white woman and her dog in Central Park on the morning of 25 May, the same day George Floyd was killed when a police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck for nine minutes. There are ‘white spaces’ in Central Park, and the Ramble, a wooded area popular with birdwatchers, is one of them. Cooper is 57 – almost ...”

“... story shut down around her, clamping her writing into its hollow wooden frame. Death and marriage may have fed and fuelled her writing, but – posthumously at least – they cramp her style.According to Freud, the act of suicide always involves more than one person. Maybe that is one reason why suicide is classified as a crime. Maybe, too, that is why ...”

“... these labels are meant to be ‘helpful for people who are concerned about eating foods that may help keep them healthier longer’. I’m all for that. The label on the tin of cannellini beans tells me that there’s no fat (saturated or unsaturated) in it and no cholesterol. That’s nice, I think. Like everyone else, I’ve heard that eating a lot of ...”