When, recently, the light-bulb in the library had blown, Alaric’s initial irritation had turned to bewilderment: where was the new bulb? Why was it not being replaced? Why was he even having to think about such a matter? The chain of invisible events which would, in the past, have speedily linked the ringing of the servants’ bell to the insertion of a new bulb had rusted away. There were no longer any bells and the only remaining servant was Miss Hersey, who still called herself Lady Irene’s lady’s maid, although (as far as Zena could see) she was now required to do almost everything except shovel coal, but even she hadn’t been able to produce a bulb when none were being manufactured.

’When the first two attempts at marrying Uma off had ended in disgrace, she had listed to Mama’s storms of temper, saying, ‘I told you he was no good, didn’t I?’ and looked sympathetically at Uma. But now a certain mockery was creeping into her behaviour, a kind of goading, like that a sprightly little dog will subject a large dull ox to when it wants a little action. Uma’s ears were already filled to saturation with Mama’s laments, and Aruna’s little yelps of laughter were additional barbs.’

‘Do you want to be evacuated?’ Mattie asked Noel, afterwards. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Roberta would have you to stay in … where is it that Roberta lives? Ipswich? I’m sure you’d be safe there.’ ‘I don’t want to go anywhere,’ he said. He was a little bit worried by the thought of bombs. He was far, far more worried by the fact that Mattie seemed to have forgotten that her best friend Roberta was dead. The funeral had been eighteen months ago. Mattie had worn her old sash, and a white, green and purple rosette.

It’s always harrowing, seeing places like this, knowing that our work could be the difference between our own home thriving or becoming … that. But those are the stakes. That’s why we’re here: to find out what happened to not only this civilisation but every dead civilisation we’ve ever found in the universe. Because as far as we know, ours is the last one left.

As I read the biographies, I began to see that just as patriarchy allowed Orwell to benefit from his wife’s invisible work, it then allowed biographers to give the impression that he did it all alone. The biographers are choosing the facts for his story in a world that has already sifted them in his favour. The narrative techniques of patriarchy and biography combine seamlessly so as to leave the woman who taught and nurtured Orwell, influenced and helped him, like offcuts on the editing floor, buttresses to be removed once the edifice is up.

Oh, but it is airless in there, cramped. Every few minutes the sky flares magnesium-white: the entire sky lights up, and the eerie thing is that you feel rather than see it. Under the waves of planes passing back and forth they start to hear the sound of handheld sirens, which is encouraging: it is the fire engines and the auxiliary services. But they haven’t, to Paul’s consternation, heard a single RAF plane. He can tell the difference, he swears, between the Jerries’ and ours, and he attempts to explain to them, at great length, why the German planes sound like woo, wooo, woooo, as opposed to the drone of ours.

Every so often Father unfolds his long limbs and ducks outside, into the hallway, into the front porch, to stretch out, to look at the sky. Paul begging to go with him, Mother absolutely forbidding it. Father crawling

He’d seen the boy appear at the open window upstairs, and then, a little later, watched him come outside, half naked, vulnerable and alone. The observing figure is amused by this, by almost all that has happened today, but he does think about killing him.
It is almost too easy.
Because of the day that is coming he holds himself in check. If you are in the midst of shaping something urgently awaited, you do not give way to impulses like this, however satisfying they might be. He is impulsive by nature, but hardly a fool. He has lived too long for that.
The boy, he has decided, is random, trivial, an accident, not anyone or anything that matters. And it is not a good idea to cause any disturbance now, among either the living or the spirits, some of them already beginning to stir. He knows about the spirits. He is waiting for them, diverting himself as best he can while he does so. He

It was a children’s play area, so it was slightly less incongruous to see a handful of kids in there too. Why they were standing around chanting was anyone’s guess. It added a very odd vibe to the scene. And the cherry on the weirdsville cake was the kid on top of the roundabout straddling the splayed victim, brandishing what looked like a small scimitar in both hands.
Matt would have been the first to admit that Oxford was an interesting city, full of very bright people who knew as much about the real world as a life dedicated to theoretical quantum physics or medieval Ottoman architecture of the Balkans might allow. Which was to say, not much. He saw them in the street every day, dressed in clothes

Mostly it is quiet here. A life of simple tasks, of day-to-day routines, of grass and hills and sea and sky. A life of wind and rain and fog and of smiles huddled around a heater and of books read each evening. Of hands clasping a hot cup of chocolate or the bend of a head against the weather, of wet clothes flung off at the door and trying to pick out the difference between a giant petrel and an albatross at distance. Of frozen food and sometimes downloaded movies and schoolwork and training and music. Of the gurgling roar of an elephant seal or the banana pose of a fur, of the flamboyant orange eyebrows of the last royal penguin colony in the world. Of seeds. Of parenting. Of grappling constantly with what to tell them about the world we left behind.

'Bruno had renounced much of the baggage that came with man's ascent of the cooked, but fire itself he regarded as mystical. It was fire that allowed the Thals to sleep for long stretches, warm and safe from animals, who were warded off by the plume of smoke exiting their cave. Protected from predators and from harsh climates by their fire, the Neanderthals had slept for longer and longer periods, from generation to generation. Sleep was key to thought, and to intellectual development. As man's thoughts became ever

'I was an obsessive re-reader. I would be still, if I had the time and remained unaware of my limited span on this Earth and the number of absolutely irresistible books coming out each year. All reading is comfort reading, but oh God, the absolute joy and security that comes with sinking back into a book that you already know virtually by heart. You can lean into the twists and turns, appreciating them anew, but knowing nothing's going to surprise you this time. You can linger over the best parts, skim over others – effectively performing a bespoke edit that is your right as a reader; enjoy the words, the make-up, the structure; get to know the characters so well that you can take a moment here and there to stare off

Hearing English spoken, an elderly man leapt up from a near-by table and reminded everyone that Britain had guaranteed Rumania. Now that Rumania was menaced, what were the British going to do? “Nothing, nothing,” he screamed in rage. “They are finished,” and he made a lunge towards the Pringles with his tussore parasol.

Harriet looked uneasily about her. When, ten months before, she had first arrived in Bucharest, the British here had been respected: now, on the losing side, they were respected no longer. She half feared actual attack – but no attack came. A certain sentiment, even affection, persisted for the once great, protecting power which was believed to be doomed.

Jones’s voice is low and almost unsettlingly melodic. Finn knows what’s she’s doing, creating a sense of intimacy by speaking so softly that he has to lean forwards to catch her words, but he does it all the same. ‘Some years ago,’ she says, ‘I discovered a way of moving in time. It’s hard to explain but think of the difference between walking up the stairs, one by one, and taking the lift.’

Finn thinks of the out-of-order elevator downstairs. The names Quantum Mechanics, Niffenegger and Co, Wells, Pevensie Ltd start to make a horrible kind of sense. Audrey

He’d moved back to Shetland after Sarah had left. He’d seen it as a failure, an act of running away. It had been a sort of promotion, but it wasn’t real policing, was it? That was what his colleagues in Aberdeen had said. A bit young for retirement, aren’t you, Jimmy lad? After losing the baby and separating from Sarah, he hadn’t really cared. The big cases hadn’t excited him any more. He’d stopped caring about the glory. And now he had a big case on his own patch and he felt something of the old thrill. Nothing to make a song and dance about just yet. But something stirring in his guts so he felt a bit more alive. The possibility of getting it right.

I felt she had stolen something from me, something that I would miss in my life. I walked away from the stall of dancing animals, bereft, towards a wagon piled with pistachio nuts. Lying on the ground next to the wagon was the black felt trilby hat the woman had been wearing. She had tucked a small sprig of a delicate, pale pink flower into its grey ribbon. I had seen these same flowers on the slopes of the hills of the Acropolis on a walk earlier that morning. Perhaps they would have been growing there when real horses pulled carriages loaded with marble to build the Parthenon.

I picked the hat up and looked for her and the old man but couldn’t see them anywhere. Her male companion was about the same age as my teacher, Arthur Goldstein.

At that moment I decided to keep the trilby hat. The horses were hers and not mine. It seemed like a fair exchange. I put it on right there in the market, tipping it forwards over my eyes, as she had done.

He placed the negative in the developer and then into the fixer. The image in the fluid, like mist slowly parting the closer one approaches, began to emerge: the young man, beautifully clear and evocatively lit, handsome and whole in body: behind him, the luxurious drapery, the nap of velvet and details of brocade, sharp and precise; and in his hand, a book, Matthew Arnold's 'Stanzas', even the shadows of the letters embossed on the cover. And beside him, semi-opaque but perfectly distinct, an older woman, well-dressed, pearl buttons, her fine head and lustrous hair, and her expression of intolerable longing.

'And why was it so urgent for them to leave?'
'To put the matter briefly, the King's son is returning to the throne by invitation of Parliament, the army has agreed – or most of it – and England is to be a republic no more.'
The information came in such a rush, was so overwhelming and unexpected, she had to sit on the bed beside him to absorb it. After a few moments she said, 'Why did the army agree to such a thing?'
'A new law, what they call an Act of Oblivion, has been laid before Parliament. The past is to be forgotten. There's to be an amnesty for all who took up arms against the late King – with one exception. All those regicides, as they call them, who had direct involvement in the trial and execution of Charles Stuart are required to surrender themselves for judgement.' He took her hand. There you have it, as plain as

'Immediately outside the window there was a platform lit by three weak, yellow bulbs strung on a wire. Beneath the furthest of these was a group of people – a tall man, unusually thin, with a long coat trailing from one shoulder as from a door-knob, surrounded by five small men in uniform. They were persuading him along. He seemed, in their midst, bewildered like some long, timid animal harried by terriers. Every few yards he paused to remonstrate with them and they, circling about him and gesticulating, edged him on until he reached the carriage from which Harriet was watching. He was carrying in one hand a crocodile dressing-case, in the other a British passport. One of the five men was a porter who carried two large suitcases.

“Yakimov,” the tall man kept repeating, “Prince Yakimov. Gospodin,” he suddenly wailed, “gospodin.”