“... in charitable work in the East End. The couple had six children. In February 1910 their son David died, aged five, from diphtheria. Eight days later, MacDonald’s mother died (he had no contact with his father). Then, in September 1911, Margaret died of blood poisoning. Even in the 1930s MacDonald still imagined himself walking along, ‘holding the ...”

“... and friend. There are at least two reasons for this. The story has often been told, notably by David Cannadine, of how the long agricultural depression broke the power of the British aristocracy, but it also drove tenant famers and labourers off the land and into the cities and suburbs; a million or more had emigrated by 1914. As a legacy of this flight ...”

“... Early​ results matter in politics. The news on the morning of 6 May seemed to confirm a familiar story. Labour had taken two totemic Tory councils, Wandsworth and Westminster, piling on metropolitan voters but failing to ignite the electorate outside the cities. Tory losses were bigger than expected, and by the end of the day looked very bad indeed: the cumulative loss was 485 seats; before the election the Mail had warned that anything over four hundred should be seen as a ‘disaster ...”

“... identifiable restaurants, doctors and nurses are equally frank and usually entertaining. Wives may, as in this book, be a little too reverential when they write about their husbands. There is, however, some criticism here. Early in their marriage she had grumbled at what seemed excessive hours of work in the lab and got the reply: ‘You have first claim ...”

“... what it means to move to the middle ground, of course. The fabled Republican negative campaigners may have a problem with exploiting it, even so. I can’t see them choosing to emphasise how soft money finances hard politics. In this, as in many issues between the parties, there is a kind of Mutual Assured Destruction which prevents the eruption of ...”

“... the ‘classic realist mode’: their understanding of the conventions of that mode may make them anxious to break free and try something else, but that is a sequel that may or may not occur – in Lodge’s case it doesn’t. So Carey, although he ends by commending ...”

“... a blind eye on forbidden infidel activities, providing no Saudis are ‘corrupted’. Europeans may brew their home-made hooch, and discreetly indulge in extra-marital sex, so long as they remain in their hotel rooms or compounds, though technically these are crimes punishable by imprisonment, flogging or worse. When Abdul Aziz became king after conquering ...”

“... people today, having gone through the purgative fires of Thatcherism, all that community spirit may seem too good – or too illogical – to be true, a myth. Historians have been quick to point out exceptions: instances of defeatism, disloyalty and people taking advantage of wartime conditions to loot, steal, cheat and kill undetected. ITV’s Foyle’s ...”

“... to direct rule from Westminster, and that Bradley start paying out the £1 billion that Theresa May was forced to pledge last year in exchange for the DUP’s help in propping up her minority government. The DUP’s deputy leader and leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds, pointed out that this agreement was not contingent on the restoration of the executive at ...”

“... humanity. Greek language, etymology, rituals, the scattered fragments of the Dionysiac tradition, may all play their part in this project of recuperation. In fact, Young laments the ‘decline’ of Hellenic studies in this country – and, with that decline, the loss of those collective dreams of the primitive past that we can experience only through the ...”

“... debut and Harold Bloom hailed the arrival of a great original. ‘I think I speak for many,’ David Kalstone wrote, ‘in saying it appeared with that sense of completeness of utterance and identity that must have come with the first books of Wallace Stevens (Harmonium) and Elizabeth Bishop (North and South).’ The book they were talking about was ...”

“... horrible that was sticking to them. A spectacular daube at a dinner party, recipe by Elizabeth David but with a freehand addition by the cook, had it – lips this time pursed, thumb and forefinger connected to indicate perfection. A work of art, of course, had a je ne sais quoi, spoken with wide eyes and lips apart to perform a look of wonder, and one ...”

“... Upper Amazon (2009), Stephan Beyer speculates that the combination of plants in the ayahuasca brew may have been developed for its spectacular purgative qualities as much as its visionary ones.The global spread of ayahuasca has been driven by two overlapping beliefs in its possibilities: as a life-changing spiritual experience and as a miraculous healing ...”

“... David Attenborough​ was born in 1926, the same year as Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro and Elizabeth II. He began hosting Zoo Quest on BBC television in 1954; not quite seventy years later, his latest series, Wild Isles, has just finished airing (it’s still available on iPlayer, or Amazon Prime for those outside the UK ...”

“... most of us did at school, is the world’s most perfect Desert Island Disc. To name it a classic may be beside the point. It is more like a myth or symbol that has got under the skin and into the secret memory of an astonishing number of readers and (above all) writers. Along with, say, Hamlet, the Ancient Mariner may be ...”