OK, I know I read this before – oh, like donkey’s years ago, but I do NOT remember it. Perhaps that is one of the benefits of getting older – the memories go and then all sorts of books can be new and refreshing, right?

For anyone planning to plow into the 600+ pages of this book – an encouragement and a warning (or this might be two encouragements or two warnings for anyone not afraid to take on 600+ pages – who knows?): 1) They say Prime Minister Disraeli got so caught up in reading this book that he cancelled a theater engagement he had been looking forward to because he just couldn’t put it down, so it is definitely worth getting through the 600 pages! 2) Don’t start this if you have to go to work or have a theater engagement or anything that will require you to put it down because you seriously will not want to. One hundred fifty years after publication, it is just as fresh as the day it was written. And another warning—don’t read this if you have any kind of medical condition that makes you susceptible to tension and stress because it just might do you in.

And now I have to tear myself away from this and from this book to get back to the impudence of work interrupting my day.