Two things immediately leap to mind on reading this book:

1) Judith has read _777_ so *you don't have to*. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
2) Do not, under any circumstances, skip the footnotes. They're hilarious. Yes, *really*.

In a book this short, what you get is necessarily a whirlwind tour, but it's a well-focused whirlwind. Highly recommended, and a delightful read. Not many works both instruct and entertain as well as this book does.

This book was full of surprises. It is so wonderfully written that I am going to let some quotes from the book do the telling. It is very unusual to find a book that presents tons of useful information that doesn't read like an encyclopedia; the author's wonderful use of the English language instead makes it read more like poetry! Here's a typical paragraph: 'We find that the entire Corpus Hermeticum is late anitquity's densely saturated, intellectually sophisticated, and magically erudite Neoplatonic stew. As it happens, this savor and complex broth was, at the outset, a 'stone soup', to which many profound and recondite thinkers added a turnip here, an onion there, a handful of parsley, simmer 600 years or so and bing!' Nothing more to add, except Thank You Judith Hawkins-Tillerson.