“... details of outer and inner life. Boswell was Strachey’s heroic alter ego, whom he admired, as Michael Holroyd wrote, ‘for all the qualities they did not share’ and also as an ur-Bloomsbury épateur of literary and social convention. It would be difficult, Strachey thought, to find ‘a more shattering refutation of the lessons of cheap morality than ...”

“... wit when it is devoted to the repression, rather than the defence, of religious dissent. As Michael Wilding points out in Dragons Teeth, changes made by Sir Thomas Browne to Religio Medici in the political crisis of 1642-3 reveal the famously ambiguous wit of that text as defensively conservative. The critical climate is now changing. The books under ...”

“... His father, Squire Haggard (a crusty fellow, but otherwise unlike the old villain invented by Michael Green), had viewed him as fit only to be a greengrocer. The post found for him was that of junior aide to the Lieutenant-Governor of Natal. Within two years, as a sort of legal odd-jobs man, he had been deputed to raise the Union Jack for the first time ...”

“... in reserve. It worked every time, starting only a year after Dupplin Moor at the Battle of Halidon Hill near Berwick – every time, at least, that the enemy could be lured into attacking a prepared position. Which is just what happened, so we’ve always been told, to the French at Crécy.In his new book, Michael Livingston ...”

“... peace; unfinished at his death in 2017, it has been seamlessly completed by his widow, Rosemary Hill. In Interwar, Stamp is scrupulously equitable and veers towards a sort of stylistic indifferentism: everything engages him, even junk neo-Georgian buildings that are beyond meretricious. He celebrates variety, eccentricity and figures from oblivion who have ...”

“... a gun in the back of his car, the judges said they didn’t believe her. When the Hickey cousins, Michael and Vincent, proved (as they were unable to do at their trial) that they were at a Birmingham garage on the afternoon of the murder, the judges took it they had travelled there directly from the murder. This approach would not work with Brian Sinton’s ...”

“... plodders, aristocrats, Maigret, the guys at the 87th Precinct. There is a quick mention of Hill Street Blues too, but television is not part of Binyon’s patrol. He is rather unquestioningly keen on plausibility – since when did that really matter in crime fiction? – and sternly says that P.D. James’s Adam Dalgliesh, for example, ‘lacks ...”

“... King’s Cross to the Angel, I have noticed St James’s Church, Pentonville, at the top of the hill and have promised myself that one day I would pay it a visit. I was in too much of a hurry or the traffic was too dense or it was beginning to rain – there was always some excuse for pushing by. On the one occasion I actually stopped, the church was ...”

“... dismayed to learn that we are so well into Post-Modernism that Neo-Modernism must be just over the hill. Indeed, according to Frank Kermode, we passed out of Palaeo-Modernism some time ago (imperceptibly, one presumes, as through the tail of a comet). He might, however, be consoled by the knowledge that artists themselves are confused, though themselves in ...”

“... their subjects/performers, but the influences will often be far from straightforward. Geoffrey Hill and Thom Gunn impress by their quiet responsiveness, their unembarrassed exploration of their own complexities – but equally they are given by Haffenden the benefit of long interviews and of questioning which follows up both intellectual contexts and ...”

“... The book of the Way says that there is a more adventurous route, for the ‘fit and experienced hill walker’ by Stob Ghabhar and Clach Leathad. I know. I’m proud to have done it once. But just as Taylor regards a recent walk up Pillar as not to be repeated, so I think about that marathon, which took till 11.30 in the dusk before we waded into the River ...”

“... the court, and refused to budge from his assertions despite rigorous cross-examination from Sir Michael Havers, that the content of his confessions had been largely suggested to him by the police officers and that he had said what they wanted him to say because their violence had terrified him and reduced him to tears. Mr Armstrong denied that the police ...”

“... recognition and experience in government, who has run a large organisation, is respected on the Hill and popular with all major constituencies. Presidents also want people whose loyalties will remain with the White House, not the department they’re running. Potential appointees who fulfill all those criteria are non-existent, however; the qualification ...”

“... had been or still were part of the Roman Empire, you would probably have met a demon. Every tree, hill and stream, every hovel and hamlet, harboured some threat to mortal souls. Demons coiled round the legs of dying sinners and snatched them up in their gaping jaws. They landed in wine cups and tricked people into drinking them. But prayer, repentance or a ...”

“... more like thirty, and I doubt whether any of the governing class that has just taken over Capitol Hill by more constitutional means than those of 6 January is planning to spend time at the Folger.Despite a title that seems intended to provoke right-wing culture warriors, Farah Karim-Cooper’s Great White Bard is in fact a general readers’ guide to the ...”