For centuries he had found work for idle hands, and his picture book was becoming increasingly popular. Then, at the end of the seventeenth century, some people started saying he didn’t exist.

The French can be very high and mighty about their slow-cooked tripe in the manner of Caen, but there’s more to Italian cooking than red sauce, Elizabeth David insisted.

The English do not understand the French, or at any rate didn’t until the master thinkers of structuralism and poststructuralism began to invade their universities.

The publication of Tristram Shandy, an anti-novel that became a model for many more, transformed him from an obscure country clergyman into the toast of London.

Tipperary writer Donal Ryan’s novel is one of four which, together with one non-fiction title, have been nominated for the Guardian First Book award.

A refusal can often offend, but this is less likely to be the case when it’s written in verse and composed by Margaret Atwood.