A Lesson Learned

This past summer, I was introduced to G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories. I read them and loved them, so when I saw this book at our little local used bookstore last week, I snatched it up. I was not disappointed.

Until I got to the end, anyway. Most of the book was exactly what I expected...interesting, fun to read, humourous on occasion, and sometimes thought-provoking.

But then I finished the book, feeling a little lost and kind of disgruntled because in the end, it didn't make sense to me. I had loved most of the book, and I wanted to love all of it, so I tried re-reading the ending before I went to bed.

I was still confused.

I thought about the book for hours before I fell asleep, and I dreamed about it "all night", so the next morning I picked it up again and flipped it open to the back of the book. On the very last page, as a publisher's bonus in this paperback version I have, there was an excerpt from a 1936 newspaper article that Chesterton had written, and this section in particular caught my interest:

Having been thus prompted, I flipped back to the front of the book to (ahem) read the title page:

And now that I have discovered what this book professes to be, I can honestly say that yes, I've read G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday, and I loved it!

The whole thing.

And from now on, the title page will be the first thing I read when starting a book.

(Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Chesterton!)