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“... with the outside world. This is fundamental: ‘AA has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.’ It has no views on politics or on anything (even alcoholism); it’s pure praxis. On the ideological level, it remains faithful to its founder Dr Bob’s dying injunction to the faithful: ‘keep it ...”

“... achieved the distinction of being represented, on an upper floor of Wheaton College, Illinois – Billy Graham’s old college – in the collection of memorabilia of such Christian writers as George MacDonald, T.S. Eliot, Charles Williams and Tolkien. It is evidence of some sort of fame. A.N. Wilson sees ‘unmistakable and remarkable evidence of something ...”

“... Aboriginals. The birthmark oscillated as he drank.   One of the Aboriginals, a very thin hill-billy type with a frenzy of matted hair, leaned both elbows on the counter, and listened.   ‘Sacred sites!’ the big man leered. ‘If all what them says was sacred sites there’d be three hundred bloody billion sacred sites in Australia.’   ‘Not ...”

“... must have been annoying for the young fellow, at the very least. But then Betjeman always enjoyed name-calling and was a great one for the put-down. Myfanwy Piper, the artist John Piper’s wife (and emphatically ‘My Myfanwy’ in Betjeman’s poem ‘Myfanwy at Oxford’), is quoted by Hillier as saying: ‘the game had to be played.’ Maybe that’s just ...”

“... do so), but the man described in my book as the ‘young planter’ is still alive, and I will not name him. Within four hours of the explosions on 21 November five Irishmen – Paddy Hill, Gerry Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, Billy Power and Johnny Walker – were arrested at Heysham in Lancashire as they got off a train from ...”

“... him as a slick mannequin in the Bill Clinton or Felipe González mould – or even a mixture of Billy Graham and Prince Charles. Initially, he seemed prepared to give Blair a chance, comparing him favourably with Keir Hardie – a Benn family hero whose biography Caroline wrote in 1992. But once Blair began to include Lloyd George in the Labour Party’s ...”

“... city which British readers are bound to assume is Glasgow. You don’t find out the boy’s name, or his age, although hints and the boy’s style of reflection encourage you to guess he’s between 14 and 16. At half-time, the boy and two friends start exploring an abandoned factory. After a bit, the boy’s friends hit him and run away laughing. The ...”

“... Plat du Jour is an album of dance tracks united by the theme of food. Herbert has made a name for himself as a producer from collaborations with Róisín Murphy and Björk, but Plat du Jour is a different kettle of fish, a personal project that has taken a couple of years to devise and record. As the opening track makes clear – it’s called ‘The ...”

“... of Kings or Ellington swinging Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite in 1960 (partly orchestrated by Billy Strayhorn), the culminating marvel and joy of the burgeoning field of jazz multiculturalism. The latter is expressed with patriotic fervour in an extended, five-minute version of W.C. Handy’s ‘St Louis Blues’ recorded ‘live’ on the evening of 7 ...”

“... book is a protest against indifference, even if its notice can aspire to nothing beyond a name. Thus Germany lost, in 1933, ‘H. Budzislawski, W. Hegemann, H.H. Jahn, H. Marchwitza, A. Rosenberg’ and 47 others including one ‘H. Arendt’, whose fame is here embedded in a long although very incomplete list. This book is dedicated to nine who were ...”

“... Madeleine’s life, as in this exchange with a would-be boyfriend: On the wall of his living room Billy had painted the words Kill the Father. Killing the father was what, in Billy’s opinion, college was all about. ‘Who’s your father?’ he asked Madeleine. ‘Is it Virginia Woolf? Is it Sontag?’ ‘In my ...”

“... total defeat and ruin. The Justice Minister, Thomas Dehler, introducing the Bill, managed not to name the Nazi period, referring instead to ‘the confusion behind us’ and the ‘years of transition and . . . economic convulsion’. A second Amnesty Law in 1954 also bundled together those guilty of crimes committed during the last violent spasm of the ...”

“... had little to do with autodidacts like Colin Wilson, John Osborne and Alan Sillitoe – this last name less often mentioned in this context than might have been expected, doubtless because Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) was published a little too late to be fitted into the fashionable grouping. Since the constituents of his mass biography led such ...”

“... its city centre, and to rebuild its economy. In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, its hyphenated name a sign of media mergers, Dan Simpson’s column declares that if Pittsburgh is indeed one of the places where the election could be decided, ‘we want a decent running-back for the Steelers.’ The city is home to the Andy Warhol Museum on Sandusky ...”

“... more sociable, even on occasion what he called ‘comfy’, more in the manner of Uncle Wiz, a name conferred by affectionate friends. This latest instalment of Edward Mendelson’s edition of the Complete Works contains Auden’s prose writings from a mere six years, roughly the poet’s forties. It was preceded by two large volumes covering 1926 to 1938 ...”