“... agnostics and atheists among my acquaintance, however, found the novel rather sad. All that self-denial and sacrifice of libido depressed them. I think it would depress me, too, now, if I didn’t know that my principal characters would have made a sensible decision long ago to avail themselves of contraceptives.’ I will always have a special fondness ...”

“... and representative liberal politics.Relative to the other European powers, Britain and Russia were self-sufficient. They had an important common interest in preventing the domination of the Continent by France or Germany. Beyond that, they had distinct spheres of influence where neither was very interested in supporting the other. As a result, their occasional ...”

“... Judgment is opaque, only realised through the particularities of each case. Gallant was a hugely self-doubting writer – there are those scraps in the waste basket and also her anxious letters, hungry for validation, to Maxwell. (‘I have no judgment of my own work … and really, very little confidence except during the actual period of writing, so that I ...”

“... on their obverses. Alberti appeared on the medals of Matteo de’ Pasti and also crafted his own self-portrait on a bronze plaquette. By mid-century he had become a prominent antiquarian and architect, who counselled and worked for Giovanni Rucellai, head of a great Florentine clan, as well as the rulers of Ferrara, Rimini and other cities. And he never ...”

“... of silver cutlery, three watches and fourteen gold rings. I picture the Berkshires: busy, eager, self-preoccupied, until something touches them too nearly, at which point they take an interest all the greater for their previous neglect. It makes sense of their not having given much mind to Bonell’s ‘frequent’ habit of bringing men up to his ...”

“... and haggard, may be clothed in animal skins like John the Baptist and is an image of anguish, self-abnegation and loss. By contrast, when a visitor to Titian’s studio commented on his version of the penitent saint, all rosy and dewy and plump, Titian ‘answered laughing that he had painted her on the first day … before she began fasting, in order to ...”

“... O’Neill’s Open Marriage: A New Lifestyle for Couples, a mixture of anthropological study and self-help guide, which suggested that ‘sexual fidelity is the false god of closed marriage.’ The Joy of Sex combined a relaxed, humorous tone with Comfort’s medical and scientific credentials (he was initially billed as its editor rather than author). Its ...”

“... is the place where golfers go to learn to love their mistakes. The term suggests that the feat of self-discipline envisaged will depend on rhetoric as well as on moral or spiritual awareness. In Updike’s Rabbit, Run (1960), Harry Angstrom seems to take the injunction literally: ‘In his head he is talking to the clubs as if they’re women.’ Inherently ...”

“... offer not just funding, but also long-term sustainment.’ Marc Andreessen is the author of the self-aggrandising ‘Techno-Optimist Manifesto’, which includes a list of enemies (such as universities, the woke mind virus, degrowth, sustainability and, inexplicably, ‘Thomas Sowell’s Unconstrained Vision, Alexander Kojève’s Universal and Homogeneous ...”

“... a Brahmin with an Apple watch is turning up to bless the well. Then come the experts, many self-appointed, and the spokesmen for pressure groups and politicians. Once or twice a worrying explanation for the miraculous event is suggested – that it’s a consequence of glaciers melting in the Himalayas (disconcertingly described at one point as ...”

“... politics also flourish in an urban milieu, would have been much more appropriate. Despite his self-censorship, however, Lacey does succeed in conveying much more of Saudi Arabia’s complex reality than Richard Johns. He understands that, in a mainly oral culture, ‘facts’ are secondary to anecdotes. His text is skilfully interlarded with stories about ...”

“... document, but time will not make it more interesting, and it would be a pity to apply a self-imposed Thirty Year Rule. From 1951 onwards, as the Shuckburgh diary shows, Eden had become very impatient about the succession – and with good reason. After the last Cabinet of the 1945 ‘Caretaker’ Administration Churchill said to him: ‘Thirty years ...”

“... parts were already experiencing what Sir Richard Southern has referred to as ‘that moment of self-generating expansion for which economists now look so anxiously in underdeveloped countries’. Equally, it is highly likely that in England, Germany, perhaps Denmark, and even Ireland (though Hodges would hardly admit as much), this process was intimately ...”

“... of exile and the value of art. But Walcott doesn’t take comfort. In the title poem he explores self-accusingly the relationship between travel and betrayal. The speaker is a man who has attained a position of power in a Third World country, and who is used to being told: ‘You are so fortunate, you get to see the world.’ But seeing the world, we ...”

“... with the early poetry: ‘honest, loveless, childhood Peter’, the poet dogged by bad-luck and self-disgust. In this area, there is little of Larkin’s saving humour. The dominant note is anger and envy: To be above the tearing fingers of the ruck You need good teeth, a good income, good luck. There is something so persistent in the rage that it becomes ...”