[I]n the 575 days since [Oscar] Pistorius shot dead his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, there has been an unseemly scramble to construct revisionist histories, to identify evidence beneath that placid exterior of a pugnacious, hair-trigger personality.

I love the way everyone tilts their heads as they scan the shelves. That's how I think of us book readers: we're head tilters.

Even more disconcerning to the ninjas were the four-dozen black leather-clad men and women wearing masks and wielding sabres that now surrounded them.

Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.