GIFT IDEA

Being Nosy Helped Me Discover This Book —It’s a Rare Jewel

Featuring encounters with remarkable people and their most valuable advice

Photo by Radu Marcusu on Unsplash

I’m in my son’s flat. It’s on the fourth floor of an elegant Victorian building in Edinburgh, Scotland.

He rents it with three other professionals. They each have a private bedroom and share a decent-sized kitchen and a living room. The living room is spacious with high ceilings, tall sash windows, and thriving pot plants, it’s the heart of the flat.

I’m waiting for my son to get ready to go out for dinner.

I can’t help but mosey over the bookcase and have a nosy. It has the usual thrillers, business books, and unread classics: ‘David Copperfield,’ ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,’ ‘If it Wasn’t for the Midges.’ There’s also an eclectic selection of outsized books piled on top of each other on the bottom shelf.

I’ve fingered the pages of these books before, but cannot recall seeing this one. A hardback. It looks worn on the outside, but the pristine pages inside tell a different story — it’s an unread book. It must have been there when I looked before and didn’t notice.

I adore stumbling on a book I’ve never read and finding myself engrossed, especially by…