“I don’t carefully plan—and yet it’s uncanny how often I seem to be reading just the right book at just the right time. Sometimes I feel compelled to read a book—or someone feels compelled to recommend it—for reasons I can’t discern, and only later do I find it’s essential to me, right then. Not before I started reading it, but after. The book may seem random when I choose it, but halfway through I realize, I need this right now.”