If I read this when I was in a cynical mood, I would have hated it. If I read this when I was feeling sentimental and light, it would be my favourite book. However, I read it on an ordinary cold day, so found it merely delightfully whimsical.

Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a bird unlike the other birds; he doesn’t want to hunt to survive, he wants to fly. At some point this quest for speed and perfect ornithological elegance makes way for bird-flavoured enlightenment.

It’s an existential fable with a messiah complex, but also just a silly short story about a talking seagull who doesn’t yield to the limits that were placed upon him. I liked it.