My father’s ultimate book, so I read it quite young. Some people get Harry Potter, I got this.

‘As things get worse and worse for us, we’re going to need more and more of all the things that give us relief and oblivion and all the things that get us revved up and excited.

More religion, more revolution, more drugs, more television channels, more sports, more casinos, more pornography, more lotteries, more access to the Web – more and more and more of it all – to give ourselves the impression that life is nonstop fun.

But meanwhile, of course, every morning we must shake off the hangover and forget about fun for eight or ten hours while we drag our quota of stones up the side of the pyramid.’

Daniel Quinn, Beyond Civilization