From the introduction: There’s a story—a story so old it’s hard to even know whether it’s true or a fable—about three brothers who each built very different houses to keep enemies out. It boils down to a moral lesson about building with bricks, I suppose, but I’ve long had a soft spot for the brother who made his house from straw. It may not have looked like much, and that brother may have come to an exceptionally untimely end, but there’s a pure and humble belief in thinking you can build a house from straw and find your refuge there.