What?

What if Mark Kurlansky, the guy who has written fascinating historical studies of things like salt and cod fish, were to write a slender book composed entirely of questions? What if some of those questions were interesting, and others not so much? What if reading Kurlansky’s thin volume was sometimes captivating, other times annoying? Would it work as a tool for people who are teaching philosophy? Does it stimulate further questions in the reader’s mind? Why are we the only species on the planet that has so many questions about the world around us? Or are we? Unlike Kurlansky’s other books, is this one likely to sell very well? Will it get the kind of media push those other books have gotten? And will you, as a reader, find yourself asking questions of your own about the nature of things, or will you merely be bored by the gimmick? Will you make it to the final question Kurlansky asks—“Why am I here?”—the central question of the book, and of human existence? Will you share Kurlansky’s interest in Nietzsche, or will you appreciate his concluding affirmative one-word declarative sentence? Are you even the kind of person who reads sketchy short reviews of books you’re unlikely to seek out? Who knows?