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“... the contemporary Irish-language poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle through James Kelman. At stake in Longman’s ‘British’ rebranding of Norton’s ‘English’ title is more than the pedantry that Ricks dismisses with the observation that ‘people do not as yet say that they love or study British literature’. (The Longman ...”

“... by the judging committee. Seriousness goes with choice: significance of specification. Henry James knew nothing of the world of political correctness, but he did insist on the novel being taken very seriously, the significant subject duly chosen, and fleshed out. The result, in his own case, could become a dull though brilliantly intelligent novel like ...”

“... brother and my sister. What about Anna, I thought. Isn’t a life of her long overdue? Perhaps Mr Kelman could be ... It was clearly high time that John Buchan was taken from his adoring family and its friends and exposed to disinterested criticism. Mr Lownie’s Life is straightforward and loyal in the extreme. He quickly establishes a reputation for ...”

“... thoughts and experiences are part of the world, not outside it. For a while there is a nearly Kelman-like convergence of word, reality and thought. The people of Davies’s peacetime world are effete, jaded and gloomy, but most of all unreal, because they seem unplugged from life. War, the bringer of death, makes them alive. It casts a strange light on ...”

“... of the book are the ones in which Greg is simply looking at things, places and people, like Mr Kelman the solicitor: ‘He had a grave face, a briefcase, a Saab 900, ginger hair, a dark pin-striped suit and black lace-up ‘shoes with tiny, superficial spots punched into the toes.’ This is just a list, but it is well-shaped; it is right (in the ...”