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“... even something you didn’t particularly wish to know.The entries under ‘S’ in the index of Sue Black’s new book, Written in Bone, include ‘Stevanin, Gianfranco, Monster of Terrazzo’ (seven page mentions); ‘stillborn babies’ (six); ‘strangulation’ (six); and ‘strappado’ (two). In the section for ‘D’ I found the sequence ...”

“... fancy and throws out a verdict reached after calm deliberation by a jury of you honest citizens black folk and white, right there in the Fourteenth Amendment in black and white, the jury that’s the bulwark and cornerstone of American justice like you don’t see in these dictator atheist countries. And it’s not just ...”

“... with any one who drained my nerve power so much … I am glad not to live near her.’ Not even Sue could love her enough to keep her from feeling betrayed. And along with the neediness there was something stranger and darker. Austin was dominated by it during his affair with Mabel, and we see it in Dickinson too. Gordon discusses two incidents in which ...”

“... Sue Lenier’s poems occupy 70 closely printed pages, of which I have read – the things I do for LRB! – 50 or so. If ‘read’ is the word for what one does, or can do, with language like this: Mourn no more for the flowers you have broken, Lies you have told and clouds stirred on my face Roused from my dark to the moons you have awoken, In this fair night your blackness keeps no place, When Winter holds her blue tongue to the trees Licking them white, they cry not at their death With tears like wings of flies washed in the breeze And blown away, each sad and lonely breath, And as each creature waits for Spring’s pale arms To rouse their sleep and tenderly lead them out, So I to you who did me all this harm Will wait, heart-full, to wake you with my shout  Of happiness, love and trembling sin –  As all the night goes out, the stars come in ...”

“... an early centralised heating system from the coal-fired furnace’. Mabel was ‘captivated’ by Sue, whom she entertained by playing the ‘beautiful new upright piano’ in the Dickinsons’ drawing room (she quickly earned a reputation as the finest musician in Amherst). She didn’t lose sleep over her decision to leave Millicent in Washington with her ...”

“... Mo (who also writes for Boxing News), the poet Craig Raine (who doesn’t) and the playwright Sue Townsend of Adrian Mole fame. I had many misgivings about the trip, particularly in regard to creature comforts. I wondered, for instance, if the Russians had got round to mineral water. John Sturrock reassured me. ‘Haven’t you heard of ...”

“... an Iris Murdoch novel with the words CATCH THESE EVIL SEX KILLERS emblazoned across the cover.) In Black and White therefore both looks and feels almost exactly like a tabloid newspaper, and this is bound to make differences to the way we treat it. Inevitably we place less value on a book designed along these lines: we fold it, we tear it, we smudge the ...”

“... slaves by name, age and skill. The first entries read: ‘George, age 27, prime cotton planter; Sue, age 26, prime rice planter; George Jr, age 4, boy child; Harry, age 2, boy child.’ Listings for 432 other slaves follow. Another indispensable source is a 28-page pamphlet published soon after the auction took place. Its author was Mortimer Thomson, a ...”

“... daughter of a distinguished anthropologist and an ethereal, unattainable type – a sort of pop Sue Bridehead. Here, the novel slightly loses its hard edges, becoming a little schmaltzy, as if it had turned into a veiled personal reminiscence. You suspect that a conventional marriage will not suit Astarte Chapel, just as, in the end, it did not suit ...”

“... was the result of an inundation of a huge freshwater lake which became, in a matter of weeks, the Black Sea. It is black because below the top few metres it is lifeless – lacking oxygen – and the sea floor is covered with fetid, dark mud where nothing but bacteria can thrive. Fish flourish only in the top water ...”

“... and tied together in so many emotional ways, and he just would not hear it. And so, he was gonna sue me, he was gonna do this, he was gonna do that – and so, I went home. I thought, ‘He’s not gonna listen to me. ’Cause I’ve said it over and over.’ And so I thought: ‘Do what you do best, just write a song.’ So I wrote the song, took it back in ...”

“... were making a contribution to the life of the nation.’ (Perhaps some of her best friends were black as well.) The entire second half of his book is undiluted heroine-worship. ‘It is these qualities – nerve, conviction and courage linked with her refusal to succumb to defeatism – that eventually carried us through more than three million unemployed ...”

“... to run the paper. There were heady moments. In the course of a feud with Number 10 he decided to sue Harold Wilson and the head of the Civil Service for denying the newspaper the usual advance copies of the Honours List. ‘I did not have a watertight legal case,’ he admits, but counsel were engaged and a vacation judge was alerted. If Number 10 had not ...”

“... essays. He was also a superb painter. He led a complicated life with manifold pursuits to which Sue Prideaux’s Strindberg: A Life does condign justice. She is Anglo-Norwegian, grew up straddling the two countries, and completed her education in art history at Florence, Paris and London. One infers her familiarity with at least five languages, so she is ...”

“... by a former Sunday Times reporter, Joan Smith; Fields of Thunder – a much better book – by Sue Lloyd-Roberts and the BBC’s Denys Blakeway. Both books were inspired by the Australian Royal Commission on the conduct of the tests, whose report was published last month. In recent years Australians have been exploring the cost in blood and pride of their ...”