The first book by Francis Spufford that I read was his first novel, Golden Hill, and I have recently read his second, Light Perpetual. I rate him very highly as a writer, and so I looked up his earlier non-fiction works, and this was the first one I’ve tried. As in the novels, at times he writes with an admirable and enviable fluency and transparency about what it is to be human. But I think the gesture-bet of the title is misleading. There are places here, some quite long contexts, where he is writing very well about what it is to be alive in the C21st. But there is no getting away from the fact that for long stretches this IS an Apologia of really quite a traditional kind, albeit in non-traditional terms and language.