OK. I think I may have cracked it. I've been trying to figure out ways to persuade people to read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and it's not been easy. How best to win people over? Well I think I've finally hit upon a plan that could work for as many as 30% of the book-reading population - nearly all of them women. So, Ladies, you're nicely brought up, you read a lot, maybe you work in publishing - so when it comes to lusting after Hollywood pin-ups do you go with the crowd and choose Brad Pitt or some similar chunk of beefcake, or do you demand a little bit more? Do you instead favour John Cusack? He's smart, he's funny and he has good taste. If he met you, he'd probably like you, right? Oh, but there's a problem. Check out the YouTube video below and you'll see what I mean.

You're having dinner, maybe at John's place - he cooked, and it was delicious - and you're chatting about this and that and you get onto politics. And then he says excitedly, "Have you read Naomi Klein's latest book?" And you say, "Well, it's not really my thing." He says "OK" in a slightly non-committal way and the conversation moves on, but it's not quite the same after that. You sense you've somehow disappointed him. You and he might be friends, but you're never going to be soul mates because you care about different things. You head home that night having had a lovely evening but feeling that somehow you've let a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity slip by. And all it would have taken was a few hours of your time and £15. Ah well...

So am I getting close? Or am I still not persuading anyone?