Growing up as the only child of a bereaved mother was surely the root of his eagerness to please — of the reluctance to be boring that weighed on him like a moral obligation. He wanted to live the life his parents were denied, to speak every language and read every book, to make phrases that were light on their feet but laden with universal truth

'My dear Miss Appleby,' said Holmes with a smile, 'I am already halfway to solving the case. Return to these quarters at eleven and I assure you the fiend will be unmasked who tweeted in your name a defence of free speech, much to the detriment of your reputation and standing as a celebrated liberal journalist.'

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, translated by Clive James […]

Once in a while, a literary prize gets awarded to […]

Halfway through this new collection of essays, in a piece […]

Why do we read books about murderers? While reading this […]

Not long ago, during a television documentary about the writer […]