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“... Fox never discusses her second marriage, which also produced children, or her current husband, Martin Greenberg, a former editor of Commentary and brother of Clement Greenberg. And while the later pages of the book are sprinkled with famous names – John Barrymore, Burl Ives and Frank Sinatra all have walk-on parts – the only literary figure who appears ...”

“... that meant the charred pods of the soap-bean tree. The recipe for gunpowder may have come from the kitchen, where meat was cured with saltpetre; sulphur was an ingredient in medicines. The optimal blend and its uses, including as an elixir, came from accident and experiment. A ninth-century Chinese text, the Classified Essentials of the Mysterious Tao of the ...”

“... come to think of him as ‘The Laughing Policeman’, after the book in the Sjöwall/Wahlöö Martin Beck series, which I’ve lately been blazing through. Every week he brings in cops from different departments and agencies to show off their gear. I didn’t know what I was looking for exactly, so I paid close attention to everything and came home at ...”

“... from the peeling paint to the warped window sashes to the old Victorian speaking tube between the kitchen and the nursery, which, when removed, looks like ‘a mummified snake’. After he’s dealt with Betty’s complaint, other reasons crop up for Faraday to return to the house, and he finds his life becoming ever more involved with the Ayreses’. He ...”

“... existential fear and trembling. (Subtext in these opening paragraphs: having inordinate if not Martin Amis-like dental bills of late – on top of all the moving expenses – have decided to come out as auto-odontophobe.) Life really would be simpler without them. Just gum everybody to death. One’s own, one gathers, are going to outlast one. Obviously ...”

“... headquarters. They were last seen fighting and dying in a vain attempt to cover the escape of Martin Bormann. The triumph of Beevor’s collage is his sources. He has used printed memoirs, but he has also come up with quantities of manuscript material – soldiers’ letters home, security reports, officers’ private diaries – from the Russian ...”

“... They would begin with a longish stretch – fifty minutes or so – then break for tea in the kitchen and do a shorter stint before dinner. He always had delicious food (a lobster or Manchego cheese and lamb’s lettuce) and sometimes they would eat at a restaurant. After dinner, the sitting would continue until about midnight, when one or other of them ...”

“... on how it should be observed; wars abroad feel much closer than stories about the Milibands’ kitchen; most of what you’re told most of the time from most sources is that you’re in a minority on these things, and not much liked or trusted as a result. ‘Our school respected the ethnicity and faith background of our pupils,’ the governor told ...”

“... fewer empty crates back than it sends full crates out. When I followed the postwoman to the kitchen, I saw, like some recurring nightmare, 20 more crates filled with letters. Selekt’s crates are yellow and stamped with the black hunting horn logo of Deutsche Post, the former German state mail monopoly that, like its Dutch counterpart, was privatised ...”

“... in San Francisco in 1955 to defend lesbian rights and build a lesbian community; its founders, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, were the first couple to get married when City Hall opened to same-sex weddings in 2004; and while the 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City are justly famous, drag queens in San Francisco had demonstrated against police oppression three ...”

“... said, ‘her myths, her superstitions, her prayers, the contents of her pantry, the smell of her kitchen, the song that escaped from her sometimes parched lips, her thoughtful repose and pregnant laughter – are all worthy of art.’ He added: ‘There’s no idea in the world that is not contained by Black life.’Wilson spent more than twenty years on the ...”

“... his widowed mother dies unexpectedly. The place is ‘a wretched house to work in, crickets in the kitchen, cockroaches in the garret, spiders and mice everywhere’. As a servant, Phemy struggles to cope with the ‘cataract of industry’ and ‘ceaseless flagellations’ of a ‘harsh rushing life’. But ‘at times the pressure was charged with a special ...”

“... vehicles that might as well be a house, but an honest to goodness two-bedroom, living-room, kitchen and bathroom house that will, when it arrives where it is going, be fixed on elevated bricks and be called home by its inhabitants. At least for a while. The buildings in America may be on the move, but it’s nothing compared to the lack of fixity of the ...”

“... books?’ That reply always ends a conversation. On the way into the hall on the last night I saw Martin Amis, on assignment for Newsweek, being scanned with a metal detector. I collected my floor pass and headed for stage right, by the West Virginia delegation, who were wearing ‘War on Coal’ pins and mining helmets to remind the nation which state lights ...”

“... downstairs. At first it simply seems to be a slightly blurred record of a domestic interior: a kitchen, a sitting-room with on the floor some toys including a couple of model planes. Suddenly one of these planes takes off, then another lands and soon the kitchen and dining-room have turned into a busy international ...”