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“... at the National Theatre in Tirana, has ordered 60 pints of pigs’ blood for his production of Richard III. He intends to make the theatre’s small musty stage into an abattoir, dress the actors as butchers in blood-splattered white coats and hang ‘the criminals’ from their feet like cattle. This, Agim says, is the only way to illustrate the horrors ...”

“... by Miroslav Holub, whom he greatly admires, and who can sound like this in English: Inside there may be growing An abandoned room, Bare walls, pale squares where pictures hung, a disconnected phone, feathers settling on the floor the encyclopedists have moved out and Dostoevsky never found the place Lost in a landscape Where only surgeons Write poems – a ...”

“... its bibliophile vice-president, Gordon Ray) acquired the literary correspondence of the publisher Richard Bentley and Sons, principal purveyor of the three-decker novel to the Victorian reading public. At the same time, the British Library (with financial assistance from the Friends of National Libraries) took possession of most of Bentley’s ledgers and ...”

“... Sissy, Carmel, Dolores, Josephine – aren’t altogether saintly, but she engages with them; she may have withdrawn from society but she’s not a recluse. It helps that she’s familiar with the bleakly beautiful Monaro landscape, having grown up nearby. She visits her parents’ graves (‘My inability to get over my parents’ deaths has been a source of ...”

“... producing it: that in devious ways social origins reproduce themselves. However oblivious Bourdieu may have been to the contrary force of his own example, he deserves credit for showing that, on the whole, social origins do reproduce themselves – a simple, indignant premise that sent him off to explore a fascinating variety of archives. In Homo ...”

“... its ironic blending of high and low, its whispered implication that things might be different. May not the Linnin of a Tiburn slave, More honour then a mighty Monarke have? That though he dyed a Traytor most disloyall, His Shirt may be transform’d to Paper royall. And may not dirty ...”

“... of the dying Marcia in Barbara Pym’s own Quartet in Autumn). Those who are sceptical of this may prefer another kind of explanation, more sociological or even political. It would involve some comment on the adequacy or otherwise of publishers’ readers, and on the principles or otherwise of publishers themselves, and on the reality or otherwise of ...”

“... narrative and publicly-known details of the author’s own life – though such a correspondence may be discernible – but the apparent attempt to claim credit and authority through the faithful rendering of real happenings, real responses. The story will be largely composed of gestures and speeches too trivial, inconsequent or banal to seem to merit ...”

“... it seemed, was the misguidedness, stupidity and sometimes dangerousness of religious belief. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens: over the previous few years each had published a bestselling book condemning religion, and they were all rather pleased with themselves. Dawkins’s The God Delusion alone, with its compelling ...”

“... supposed ‘goals’ of the Communist Party Historians Group in 1946-56, the realisation of which may be seen in A.L. Morton’s The World of the Ranters and Christopher Hill’s The World Turned Upside Down. At the same time, these and other historians wished to find precursors for the anti-hegemonic ‘hippy’ culture of the late 1960s, and Norman Cohn ...”

“... little treasure. Good looks don’t hurt but rate low on their own. The teenage girls who fall for Richard Gere Admit his face is random flesh and bone Beside Mel Gibson’s, that his skin lacks tone And when he smiles his pin eyes disappear. They go bananas when he bares his chest But torsos that outstrip his leave them cold. One bit of you might well be the ...”

“... Richard Wollheim’s memoir of his childhood, roughly a third of which appeared in two recent issues of the London Review (15 April and 20 May), is to be published in its entirety in September by the Waywiser Press. In his obituary of Wollheim in the Independent last November, John Richardson wrote that Germs – which Wollheim thought ‘the best piece of work’ he had ‘ever done’ – ‘must not be allowed to become a chef d’oeuvre inconnu ...”

“... series which concerns his finances, letters to his legal adviser, William Pyne, and to his tailor, Richard Culverwell. There has been a long upper-class tradition of owing money to one’s tailor – which, no doubt, explains the inordinate prices charged in those days. Disraeli, characteristically, went a step further and actually borrowed money from his ...”

“... with firm, frontally presented bodies or with devices that enhance its given texture. Thus stone may, in his metaphors, ‘disclose itself’ or ‘grow steadfastly’, emerging into ‘stone-blossom’. The ideal carver merely helps the stone to unfurl. Taken as prompts to interest English readers in distant Italian reliefs, these marine and vegetable ...”

“... of escape’ – escape from society. Finally (and to be taken foremost) is A Sort of Clowning by Richard Hoggart, perhaps the most usefully class-conscious English writer of our time. He created an accepted general idea of the British ‘working class’ in 1957, with The Uses of Literacy. He developed his concept, most recently, in his memoir, A Local ...”