“... Berlin almost five months later. Readers of Beevor’s Stalingrad will draw comparisons, and it may be that they will find this at once a longer view and a less satisfying work. Stalingrad’s limitation was its astonishing, deliberate lack of historical context; this was the closely retrieved story of a great battle whose ...”

“... surgery there published its Interim Report on the ‘Removal and Retention of Human Material’ in May 2000. A third inquiry is now taking place in Scotland, where the legal apparatus for the investigation of the causes of death is very different. The Scottish Independent Review Group on the Retention of Organs at Post-Mortem published its first set of ...”

“... and routine rather than self-conscious. This does not preclude great accomplishment; in fact it may encourage it. Every day of the year, in every large English cathedral, choral evensong is sung. The core of what the choristers perform was written at a time when these craft traditions were matched by religious belief, by composers like Tallis, Purcell, Byrd ...”

“... not prejudice, to Oliver Yorke, with a reply from Oliver Yorke’ (published in the magazine in May 1831) is a good example, though the actual authorship of the piece remains unknown. Another Irish journalist, Sylvester Mahony (‘Father Prout’), contributed a series of ‘Prout papers’ to Fraser’s and when these Reliques of Father Prout were ...”

“... Noise and Bustle you can, to make the whole Town ring of you if possible: So that every one in it may know, that there is in Being, and here in Town too, such a Physician’. One way to make such a noise was to be seen in the fastest and most fashionable medical and literary circles, hoping for a reflected aura, or, at least, for crumbs of patronage to fall ...”

“... of modern times, assumed the Board chairmanship in 1996, he, too, cocked up in this direction. It may be that there’s something about running an opera house that goes to the head of almost everyone who comes in from outside and thinks they can do it – and in that sense Tooley’s insistence on theatre experience as a requisite in an opera house boss makes ...”

“... Narnia is enjoying a resurgence in Harry’s wake.Events at Columbine High School last year may explain the reaction of some American parents who have opposed the Harry Potter books. The students who shot and killed their classmates said they were out to get the school bullies, and were themselves part of a widespread teen cult inspired to some degree ...”

“... might suggest. It is important to understand that constructing what traders call a ‘position’ may involve not buying an asset but ‘short selling’ it: that is, borrowing it, selling it, and later repurchasing and returning it, a perfectly normal sequence in the financial markets. More profoundly, the construction of the replicating portfolio depends on ...”

“... Four more bodies were discovered in the wreck after it was salvaged a fortnight later. It was May before the two remaining members of the crew were washed up and identified. This is another version of what happened, from government documents: ‘The cause of this casualty was either an error of judgment on the part of the tug master or the very temporary ...”

“... one night, you said.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘All right, but if I start this story …’ ‘Yes?’ ‘It may change under my hands.’ … ‘So what shall I wear?’ ‘It’s up to you. Combat or Prada?’ ‘How much can I spend on clothes?’ ‘How about $1000?’ ‘My whole wardrobe or just one outfit?’ And so on. I don’t know why Winterson put that bit ...”

“... Diana, once the object of human adoration, but now only valued as a rarity, that by its high price may feed the grovelling pride of its possessor.’ Even today, the comments inscribed in the Visitors’ Book attest to the wildly different responses the house provokes – ranging from the naively enthusiastic (‘Amazing, could you design my house?’) to the ...”

“... improvisation, and the difference between them is well preserved in a story I have yet to tell. In May 1945, when the war came to an end, I was on the headquarters of an infantry brigade, which I had joined just before the Normandy invasion, and which had served me as a haven from the misery of an infantry battalion, for which nothing in my nature, except ...”

“... as long as I did not feel my conscience quite at rest’. The famous opening of Fingal’s Cave may have been jotted down when Mendelssohn visited the place, but it took years of tweaking before the score was given to the world, and the same is true of the fabulously fluent Fair Melusine Overture, the volatile (posthumously ...”

“... of their pirouettes or the fact that they are silently upheld? Blankness is not emptiness; we may skate upon an intense radiance we do not see because we see nothing else. And in fact there is a colour, a quiet but tireless goodness that things at rest, like a brick wall or a small stone, seem to affirm. He goes on to set out his ambition ‘to ...”

“... as any glance at the inner workings of Manchester Town Hall will show. Muddle in style may not much matter and can even be attractive; muddle in ideas is serious, if unmediated by dialectic. The generosity of Hunt’s account serves to make the Victorian city look confused. He begins with urban industrialism’s enemies. These number not only those ...”