I'm required to announce, by the fact that it happened, that my father recommended Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women' to me when I was eleven years old,

admonishing me not to be put off by the gender of the title, "because it's more about human beings than just about girls." And thus admonished, I read it and quite liked it. It may have been the last non-misogynist thing I ever did, but I did it, and I did it at the instance of my father, whom I otherwise considered rather an idiot.