A JOURNEY TO THE SEA

Here is a successful entrepreneur who sets out to astonish you a lot and scare you a little. And succeeds: what looks like a series of humorous essays from his chequered past and favourite films becomes a fascinating detective story into myth, existential philosophy, depth psychology, alchemy and our individual potential. Here is a man who, in his own words, took the midlife crisis and turned it on its head.

He begins by asking you simple questions. And, as he says, they stay simple for quite a while. But before long the reader is swept into Sufism, myth, the Apocalypse and poetry to be confronted with the profoundest and most urgent questions facing any individual: ''Who are you?'' and ''Do you want to start your life?'' The everyday event is made to shine with wonder and implication.

The wit is dry, hilarious, and at times savage; you are chortling from Alfred Hitchcock to Greek myth, from Hindu fairy tale to the Lehman bankruptcy. In the foreground is a life bubbling with intelligent recollection and anecdote: but in the background a mystic vision is being gradually disclosed.