“... 27 in all, organised from A to Z – a segment per letter, plus one for good measure. Sorrentino took his cue from a line in Rimbaud’s Illuminations: ‘And the Hôtel Splendide was built in the chaos of ice and polar night.’ His final piece, for the last letter of the alphabet, deals the reader a dream ending: ‘Z. Everyone is asleep in the ...”

“... The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Koestler’s The Sleep-Walkers, and all of Christopher Hill.He took a strong interest in subjects which intrigued him, notably dinosaurs and stone circles (Stonehenge in particular), cosmology and scientific matters generally (he was an avid reader of the New Scientist); and he was keenly interested in current affairs, both ...”

“... the 19th and 20th centuries. He wrote outstanding biographies of such Liberal leaders as Asquith, John Morley and Haldane, concluding with A.G. Gardiner, long-time editor of the Daily News. He then gave up political biography and wrote an enormous two-volume work on The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain. It is difficult enough to write the ...”

“... of mistresses, champagne, gambling and entertaining’. He was best known for his magazine John Bull. Launched in 1906 following Bottomley’s election as the Liberal MP for Hackney South, it specialised in a leaden patriotism. The French were ‘the Foul French’; the Labour leader Keir Hardie was ‘Kur’ Hardie; Britain’s wartime opponents were ...”

“... and excitement of research than Julia Blackburn’s account of her attempt to find out about John Craske. Detail from Craske’s ‘The Evacuation of Dunkirk’ She first hears about him from her friend Emily, who told her: ‘He was a fisherman who became a painter and embroiderer … I think he’s much better than Alfred Wallis down in ...”

“... writings and those of contemporary medical men, besides the testimonies of friends and strangers, John Wiltshire examines Johnson as both sufferer and physician (or healer). Hence his punning subtitle. Some of Johnson’s best friends, starting with his godfather, were doctors, and in addition to being himself a monumental patient, he was ready to give others ...”

“... than they might have hoped,’ one of the Spaniards said. On the foreshore they sang High Mass and took possession of the islands in the name of His Spanish Majesty. Just before they left, some canoes came out to the ships. The Spaniards did not know why. The people in the canoes were offering coconuts and breadfruit. But the Spaniards feared them, and so ...”

“... younger writers, whose thesis-novels, with their free-thinking views on politics and religion, took up the challenge thrown down by conservative reaction to the Revolutionary events in France. Bage, though, maintains a healthy distance from both the extreme optimism Godwin expressed in Political Justice (1793) and the profound pessimism of Caleb Williams ...”

“... In​ 1619, for a bet, John Taylor – prolific poet, proud Londoner, waterman, prankster, anti-pollution campaigner, barman, literary celebrity, palindrome enthusiast (‘Lewd did I live, & evil I did dwel’) – sailed forty miles down the Thames to Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey in a boat made from brown paper ...”

“... were also a frequent trigger. In the 1860s the High Church principles of Thomas Keble (brother of John Keble, a leading figure in the Tractarian movement) became unpopular in his Gloucestershire parish, producing resentment that might have exacerbated opposition to the enclosure of local common land. In 1864, a disturbing letter arrived for ...”

“... Ireland and Scotland and London, where both men did their publishing work. Over the years they took on other passengers, of which I was one. I suppose it could be said that we each had an interest in the grounds of literature and in the ground itself. Since I first got to know these men, the landscape of these islands has been transformed. A few years ago ...”

“... Dry Salvages’ in structure and style parodistic of the quartets that preceded it. This proposal took off from an idea of Hugh Kenner’s, and any theory with two such exceptionally able sponsors needs treating with respect. The element of likelihood in this one derives from the way it locates Eliot’s work within that ‘Age of Criticism’ which Modernism ...”

“... only other models,’ she writes in this new biography, ‘are Renaissance figures such as John Dowland and Thomas Campion.’ (She might have looked sideways to Noël Coward, Bob Dylan or Cole Porter; to John Cage’s poetry, Ezra Pound’s operas, the compositions of Christopher Fry or Anthony Burgess.) One of the ...”

“... violence: it is a survivalist world, bleak and uncompromising – the world of competitive chess. John Healy arrived there, without papers or proof of identity, a drowning man coming up for the last time. It was his only way of escaping from the slow-motion suicide of alcoholism, and he took it with manic relish. His ...”

“... Eco gives his story a solid foundation in the politics and theology of the early 14th century. John XXII is Pope in Avignon. A decision of his predecessor had opened a division among the Franciscans by relaxing the original Rule in respect of poverty. The Spiritual Franciscans, who adhered to the letter of the Rule, were condemned by ...”