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“... the grey scale, with no hue but with some variations in brightness. It is not an easy painting to read, even when you know its title and its origin, and seems to fall somewhere between allusion and abstraction. For Richter, photography suggested a way forward for painting which would enable it to incorporate the lessons of abstraction, minimalism and the ...”

“... about Orwell, including the memoir of Richard Rees and The Unknown Orwell by William Abrahams and Peter Stansky (lamed by the late Soni Orwell’s refusal of permission to quote), and, more recently, the expansive Life by Bernard Crick, at first authorised by the widow to emphasise her rejection of Stansky and Abrahams, and later de-authorised by her to ...”

“... associates might help him deliver into a tape-recorder, they haven’t. This is a book meant to be read and even kept. Indeed it might have more keepers than readers, since a probable majority of buyers will be the people mentioned in the appendixed lists of club committee-members, tabulated on an annual basis. An ex-Junior Treasurer or Falconer from the late ...”

“... it. The Modern American Novel is an ‘Opus Book’ (General Editors – Keith Thomas, Alan Ryan, Peter Medawar) intended for students. The Literature of the United States is a volume in the Macmillan History of Literature. But no Oxford undergraduate could get by with generalities like this aperçu of Professor Walker’s: ‘Jewish novels are ...”

“... well as about Measure for Measure, which Leavis admired and which Wittgenstein may or may not have read or seen but was not predisposed to like. Yet it would be wrong to suppose that Hawkes is merely engaged in a ludic ramble. He earns some of his jokes, and one of the best things about his books is that he has the skill, rare in these and most other times, to ...”

“... dedicated to Milgram: empowerment … taking responsibility), as well as being the source for a Peter Gabriel song entitled ‘We Do What We’re Told (Milgram’s 37)’. A French punk rock group called Milgram put out a CD called Vierhundertfünfzig Volt (‘450 Volts’). A British band called Midget issued The Milgram Experiment. Plays have been written ...”

“... except for an outdoor class of boys learning the Koran by rote, and nothing on sale that could be read. Basir’s concerns were for the illiterate commanders’ future employment prospects, but what about the consequences of ignorance in their present jobs? It is said that while measuring out his days under UN protection in a compound in Kabul, Muhammad ...”

“... New Testament, beaming from a candle on a candle-stick round whose column cluster St Paul and St Peter, and whose base is supported by the symbols of the Evangelists. Groping their purblind way from the light, their backs turned to it, towards a pit, is a group of scholars and dignitaries, chiefly churchmen, headed by the Pope. Aristotle, the ...”

“... manager goes to a restaurant with the star’s agent, Ari Gold. The manager is called E. E: He has read Medellin and he wants to do that. Ari: Where d’you get that one, huh – Josh Weinstein? E: A little insecure, Ari, eh? Ari: How d’you get it? E: Turtle found it on the subway. What’s it matter? We wanna do it. Ari: Yeah, and I want to fuck ...”

“... well-made plays, packed with schematic clichés and mechanical ironies. Of course, we could always read the thematic material as camouflage, as literary garnish to what’s essentially just a thumping good read. But that would be a little unfair to Boyd – especially when his new novel, Any Human Heart, struggles earnestly ...”

“... of its publication at the time, because surely I would have loved it then as I love it now: I have read few books of such wide and delightful appeal. There is a rare wholeness about The Book of Ebenezer Le Page. You get the entire man, in a way that isn’t usually within the gift of literature to procure. It is ‘the book of’ in the prosaic sense that ...”

“... of sirens.’ Sebald, Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of East Anglia, had read that the skull of Sir Thomas Browne, antiquary, lover of mysteries, connoisseur of odds and ends, was kept in the museum of that same hospital. He failed to find it, or the museum, and it turned out that the skull had subsequently been buried with the rest ...”

“... places. The sequences featuring three eventually famous friends, James Prior of Northern Ireland, Peter May of England, one of its cricket captains, and William Rees-Mogg, late of the Times, are among the tightest and funniest things he has written. May is present, while utterly silent, as a batsman of genius, and as a figure of fun and a pillar of rectitude ...”

“... During his summation at the Old Bailey trial of Peter Sutcliffe, Mr Justice Boreham felt called upon to remind the jury that they were there to judge Sutcliffe, not the flock of psychiatrists called to testify as to his mental condition. The jury could have been forgiven for believing that psychiatry, not Sutcliffe, was in the dock, for during the trial, the profession and its discourse were subjected to merciless inquisition ...”

“... was the life and soul of the party, observant of every detail. Food was bought on the way ... Peter Pears and Britten would often give her [Princess Mary] a small, private recital, just half a dozen Schubert songs that were then in their repertory – not too taxing for anybody. Still, there is inevitably some matter in the book, and until Donald ...”