From an early age I was instructed not to judge a book by its cover, just as so many other people have been taught. I find it an impossibility not to do so, since that is generally what first catches my eye. This wasn’t the case, though, with Alain de Botton’s A Week at the Airport. I knew I had to have this book as soon as I read the title – it sounded so interesting and different from anything else I had recently read.