This book is the best thing that’s happened to me since J.D. Salinger covered his typewriter, or went to Mars or whatever it was that happened to him. It’s a book to put in your satchel and take everywhere, so that in times of stress, you can take it out, read a chapter and feel your heart lift. In fact, it’s really too good for me to write about, but I don’t suppose the editor would be amused by a silent tribute.

Barry Dickins has given us thirty-odd chapters, snapshots is probably a better word, from his life. They are so funny, so sad, so ENLIGHTENED, they make you believe again in some of the things you’d become afraid to believe in.