One of the great things about surprises is ... they're a surprise. I recently had a birthday, and was delighted to receive a gift in the mail from a friend. One of the items in the parcel was this curious novel by Daniel Quinn.
I have to admit I had never heard of Daniel Quinn. His books Ishmael, The Story of B and My Ishmael form a trilogy that seems to have been quite influential in the 1990s. Ishmael apparently won the Turner Fellowship of Tomorrow Award (which I hadn't heard of) and inspired a Pearl Jam song 'Ishmael' (which I'd never heard). Everything about this book and its author constituted a surprise for me, then!
I was even more surprised when I opened the book to the title page and saw this: