Housman: It's where we're nearest to our humanness. Useless knowledge for its own sake. Useful knowledge is good, too, but it's for the faint-hearted, an elaboration of the real thing, which is only to shine some light, it doesn't matter where on what, it's the light itself, against the darkness, it's what's left of God's purpose when you take away God. It doesn't meanI don't care about the poetry. I do. — Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Published for the first time this month, the Irish writer’s record of his months in pre-war Germany is a fascinating insight into his understanding of, and unease with, Nazism