IF....

Another old-but-always-new book for you this month; it was a gift from a friend.

The book is actually about 20 years old, but I heartily recommend you pick up a copy (or several) and share them with friends and family.

It's a deceptively simple little book, presented in a small square and less than an inch thick. But its contents are anything but simple.

All it is is questions; propositions. But they are some of the most difficult and intriguing questions I have ever mulled over.

If you could spend a night alone with anyone living, who? Anyone who is no longer living? If you were granted just one wish, what would it be?

What if you could pull a Steve Allen and invite a group of people from the past to dinner - who would they be?

This is the type of book that young couples contemplating marriage might want to delve into - or perhaps a couple who has been married many years and has lost than sense of discovery about one another. Families could discuss a topic with children at the dinner table (minus the ones that are "adult themed," of course!). This is not a book to give to younger kids, though there are many questions parents could safely present to their children to help initiate a conversation. For that matter, it would be an interesting conversation starter for adult children to spend some time with their older parents, who can often feel that they have much to share and no one to share it with.

Because in the final analysis, the little book is all about, as its subtitle says "Questions for the Game of Life."

Some of them, on the face of it (all puns intended) seem silly -  "If you could only use one cosmetic item for the rest of your life, what would you choose?" - yet actually make you thing about what part vanity and comfort play in your life. Others would require, for some of us, a lot of thinking "If you had to choose the best book in history, which book would get the prize?" Oh, please, don't ever make me really choose!

Still others could provoke some fun and laughter - or maybe some hurt feelings: "If you had to pick the worst meal you've ever eaten, what would it be?" (I know that answer: I cooked it!)

And yet other might encourage you to do something: "If you could change one things about your home, what would you make different?" Maybe you can act on this one!

I'll leave you with this one, because I have often said the inverse: if I were going to sell my soul, it wouldn't be for that! So this question is: "IF you had to sell your soul for one thing, what would it be?"

Think about it.

This great little book, and it's sequel, are available at Amazon, and more than likely many bookstores still.

And by the way, MD, thanks!