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“... Alan Garner​ ’s new book is a patchwork of memoirs and essays, taking its title from the offcuts of tapestry that weavers (like some of his forebears) would take home with them. His heyday has been a long one. Garner’s first book for children, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, published in 1960, has a place on the shelves and in the memories of generations of readers, while his tiny, exquisite novel Treacle Walker was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 ...”

“... strangeness’ of the art of the storyteller. Nowhere is this more clear than in the work of Alan Garner, whose imagination is haunted by goblins. He knows that the strangest thing of all is that, to see them, there is no need to make an expedition to Narnia or the Berkshire Downs. You can watch for them out of the corner of your eye, even in ...”

“... also talked about Fisher’s ideas for future projects: Red Shift, a publishing imprint, after the Alan Garner novel; an essay on John Akomfrah’s film triptych The Unfinished Conversation, featuring the memories of Stuart Hall; a book of essays about Kanye West. These interests are all evident in Fisher’s work too.The second memorial lecture was given ...”

“... kind of fall: tragic early death. He wrote books about the CIA and the Pentagon, on Clinton and Alan Greenspan, carrying on at the Post as well, making a name for himself as a reporter and author others wished to emulate. He’d brought down a president: journalistically, what can beat that? He’s now more famous and must be wealthier than any other ...”

“... characterise nobody but Clive James. It would matter less if he were less ignorant. He describes Alan Wearne’s verse novel The Nightmarkets as ‘so solidly or anyway heavily involved in the tradition of Pound, Williams, Zukofsky and the yellow pages of the telephone directory’. Here, in neat reversal, only the joke is right. Wearne does have a telephone ...”

“... Montgomery during Chandler’s lifetime, and afterwards by Elliot Gould, Robert Mitchum and James Garner. He was the hero of the most listened to radio detective serial in history, and, by the time Chandler died in 1959, had sold over five million books. The private eye was the wilderness hero moved to the urban frontier, alone and unattached, living honestly ...”

“... that intrigues.8 June. Man overheard in Oxford Street: ‘Can that cow shop! Jesus!’18 June. Alan Clark’s Diaries mention being smiled on in the lobby by the Prime Minister. Idly opening Chips Channon’s Diaries I find a similar note, re Chamberlain. Courts do not change whether the court is at Westminster, Versailles or even British Airways, Lord ...”

“... a three-day affair, and featuring almost exactly the same players as before. Botham, Richards and Garner were there for Somerset; Gatting, Emburey and Cowans for Middlesex – big stars indeed, and the stakes too were pretty high. If Middlesex failed to win they would fairly certainly surrender their leadership of the Championship table to Essex; and this ...”

“... the Mona Lisa will blow about the world some day. The difference is that the land artists usually garner their materials from the place where the work finally blossoms; and they process these thorns, stems, stones and feathers as little as possible before embodying them in their works. Chris Drury’s Whale Bone (1993), illustrated in his recent Silent ...”

“... don’t have legislative or enforcement powers. In 2009, Swartz volunteered in Representative Alan Grayson’s office to try to learn how to get bills through Congress (The Boy Who Could Change the World contains an insightful essay on how Congress works). He became increasingly obsessed with the influence of money on American politics, and inspired ...”

“... a jumble sale or second-hand shop, and the books we actually read, stories by Rosemary Sutcliff, Alan Garner and Agatha Christie. When my eldest sister went to Birmingham University to study English in the mid 1970s the bookshelf began to change character: T.S. Eliot, Camus, the Mabinogion. It may be that Laing was part of Birmingham’s contribution to ...”

“... the economy totters towards the precipice. According to the official story – told not only in Alan Greenspan’s testimonies to Congress but in the Council of Economic Advisers’ Economic Report of the President 2001, the last under the Clinton Administration – the stock market hothoused a technological revolution in the 1990s which allowed the US ...”