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“... of the people in the wake of 1968. Benn’s foundational insight was that ‘more people want to do more for themselves, and believe they are capable of doing so, if the conditions could only be created that would make this possible.’ Benn demanded that the concerns of feminists, Black activists and others organising for themselves be absorbed into the ...”

“... Morris and a great deal of cold water ... he says it is useless, that I am going to do a thing with no basis to do it on ... “Look I am going to forge a weapon for you; and thus I too work with you in the overthrow of Society.” To which he replied: “The weapon is too small to be of any ...”

“... out of the small worlds mapped in Eating people is wrong and The British Museum is falling down. David Lodge’s latest, Paradise News, crosses at least ten time zones from Rummidge, over the Pacific Rim, to Hawaii. Doctor Criminale clocks up fewer frequent-flyer miles, but short-hauls hectically. The narrative opens in London, flies to Vienna, boards the ...”

“... how she voted), or anything practical. No exchange of recipes. No mention of sport. ‘Anita, what do you think of Ireland’s chances in the Six Nations?’ was not a question that ever came to my lips. I remember her telling me that she had just finished a novel and so, for the moment, was ‘doing exactly what I like’. I said, teasingly: ‘Well, in your ...”

“... before Wimbledon and other prized parts of the output go the way of the Premier League and Sir David Attenborough onto better financed channels. That’s not the only difficulty. It is generally reckoned that if the BBC is to justify being the beneficiary of a poll tax, the BBC needs to reach at least 90 per cent of the UK audience, although there is a bit ...”

“... flaubertising in the foreground, the background originally held the figure of the model Jerry Hall breastfeeding her baby. She sat thus for several months, until one day she called in sick. When, a couple of days later, she was still unfit to pose, the enraged Freud painted over her face and inserted that of his long-time assistant ...”

“... Baldwin died’. Philip Roth has been led to histories of American racism by Coates’s books. David Brooks credits him for advancing an ‘education for white people’ that evidently began after ‘Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston and the other killings’. Even USA Today thinks that ‘to have such a voice, in such a moment, is a ray of light.’ Coates ...”

“... because that’s the effect Sontag still has on me 15 years after her death, and nothing less will do. Born Sue Rosenblatt, a rabbity name that would never do on a marquee, she chose to be known as Susan Sontag (taking the surname of her stepfather, her biological father having died when she was five). ‘To write, I must ...”

“... and their agents have burrowed under Chelsea and Kensington for generations, commissioning Dr No fantasies of swimming pools and cinemas and state of the art gymnasia in which no uninvited civilian will ever set foot. These windowless sets, finessed by fashionable architects, are like parodies of facilities promised for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic ...”

“... implied by the enterprise, is the contention that women understand women writers better than men do. Other things being equal, readers of the same sex will be closer to the meaning of Jane Austen, for instance, than their male counterparts. Where there is a choice, women’s commentary is given priority in the attached bibliographical notes. They know ...”

“... moved to ardent xenophobia by the Royal Jubilees. Such divisions did exist and have continued to do so, as is clear from the degree of conscientious objection during two world wars, and from the polarisations evoked by the Suez and Falklands expeditions. The problem of national identity is more complex than this, however, being the result of ambivalence ...”

“... wait upon us; men’s lives hang in the balance; men’s hopes call upon us to say what we will do. Who shall live up to the great trust? Who dares fail to try? The new stewardship of daring was to become the hallmark of modern Presidential politics. The aim was to overcome the hobbling lethargy of a government too divided to govern in a new century in ...”

“... activity has been recorded: the Lamberts were, after all, marginal figures – over-talented de-spoilers of their own talent. Their achievements look smaller with the lapse of time, and if it were not for Constant’s half-dozen really distinguished musical works, Motion would hardly have a book at all. Even when reading about Constant’s development ...”

“... of Burrinchini. The project to which the efforts of Burrinchini are addressed – truly his raison d’être – is to retrieve a historical account of how ‘things political’ were pondered by a number of British writers during the 19th century. If this seems a cumbrous way of putting it, why not simply say that this is the history of Political ...”

“... modern reader want to dive under the bedclothes too. As an account of what showbiz publicity can do for a girl his book is unbeatable. If it’s not always solid on ascertainable fact – ‘Charles Reade, the famous author of The Cricket on the Hearth’ is a particularly sportive invention – who cares? It’s the myth that matters. Harriet Smithson was ...”