“... the closet. This time, however, there was no formal disbandment and since the mid-Eighties, when David Duke organised his spin-off Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, embittered white Southerners have kept in trim by linking up with one or another of America’s numerous neo-Nazi militia movements. The Twenties obsession with Catholics has again been sidelined. The ...”

“... such as Norman Stone, Hew Strachan, Annette Becker and Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau. With Cataclysm, David Stevenson draws on much recent work to provide a comprehensive account of the war, with a welcome interest both in the non-European theatres and in the home fronts. His book is also part of a more general attempt to rethink the meaning of the Great War and ...”

“... For three years​ David Blunkett, then the Labour home secretary, had an affair with Kimberly Fortier, publisher of the Spectator. The affair came to an end in the summer of 2004. A few weeks later, on Friday 13 August, Andy Coulson, editor of the News of the World, showed up at Blunkett’s office in Sheffield to ask whether he was having an affair with a married woman ...”

“... stretching upwards, but perhaps true ambition has a pair of silent claws. None of us identified David Cameron as the boy marching inexorably towards Downing Street. When he became Tory leader in 2005, I had difficulty recalling him: wasn’t he that affable, sweet-faced, minor fellow at the edge of things? I remembered him as quite handsome, with the ...”

“... for not giving any – as well as being admirably genial. After all, says Aldiss, the definition may be wrong, but it doesn’t matter: ‘we can modify it as we go along.’ The definition is as follows: ‘Science fiction is the search for a definition of mankind and his status in the universe which will stand in our advanced but confused state of ...”

“... under the age of 50, the odds are that you’re not, and if you’re under the age of 30, you may well be bloody furious. Britain has become a polity plagued by a fear of its own rejuvenation. How has this situation come about? It’s tempting to view the division in wholly ‘cultural’ terms – a clash of values. This story is well ...”

“... up – and it will end up, as with all other poets whatsoever, by having its ups and downs – one may certainly say now that his work has not been digested, by those who reckon they have a digestion for such things, in the way that that of Eliot, Pound, Yeats and Hardy has been, to say nothing of many a lesser figure. In what might be called the peripheral ...”

“... been deteriorating, according to the Ipswich Star’s report of the inquest, since the previous May. His wife, Zoe, told the inquest that they had been seeking help for him, but the local NHS trust hadn’t been able to offer anything beyond a telephone chat with a GP. ‘The hospital services are always attentive and on the ball, but once you leave ...”

“... dog, has written a play, premiering at Quahog, which ‘all the playwrights’ (i.e. Yasmina Reza, David Mamet and me) duly go and see – and rubbish. They had first of all asked if they could use me as a cartoon character to which I graciously agreed (not saying that I felt it was the highlight of my career). It was then they asked if I would voice ...”

“... like John le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl and Agents of Innocence by the American writer David Ignatius. In recent years, however, a number of scandals have badly tarnished the reputation of Israel’s security services and stimulated calls for greater public accountability. One of the most damaging blows was struck by Victor Ostrovsky – like the ...”

“... parties. The key portfolios in the new government went to the members of Shamir’s Likud Party. David Levy, a populist of Moroccan origins, became Foreign Minister. Mr Levy does not speak English. But since little more than a dialogue of the deaf with the United States was likely on the peace process, this was not considered a severe handicap. Moshe ...”

“... imaginable – all-out nuclear war – is to threaten the use of nuclear weapons, then that threat may be considered in itself proportionate to the evil it is seeking to avert. It is obvious that for some places and for some purposes the deterrent works. The question is whether it will work indefinitely for all places and for all circumstances. Objections to ...”

“... than sixty galleries, at a cost of $450 million. Roughly half of this great sum came from the late David Rockefeller, longtime chairman of the board (his mother, Abby, was a co-founder of the museum), and the other half from just four people: the hedge fund billionaires Leon Black, Kenneth Griffin and Steven Cohen, and the media mogul ...”

“... tough keeping track of all the debutantes promenading into print and creating a stir: Donna Tartt, David Leavitt, Mary Gaitskill, Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, Nancy Lemann, Susan Minot, Mary Robison, Anderson Ferrell – a cast of dozens. Many of those rookies trained at the literary dojo of the author, editor, creative writing teacher and guru-mentor-mindgamer ...”

“... rescued. Compared to the one and a half million children who died during the Holocaust, this may seem insignificant, but it was something. A similar plan was rejected by the US Congress.Things moved quickly. Within days of the vote, the BBC broadcast a call for foster homes and the Movement for the Care of Children (later renamed the Refugee Children’s ...”