Donors might be miffed to find that a magnificent gift was not earmarked for rescue.

In many of his nostalgic reminiscences, laced by descriptions of a mother who couldn’t cook and who seemed focused elsewhere than upon her family and of a father whose ideas of fun vacations included penny-pinching excursions to obscure places, [Bill] Bryson strikes us as very much like eye-glassed and bunny-suited Ralphie, the narrator of the popular A Christmas Story movie.

'We best be going,' she said, looking at the clock.

The former is fastidious, and to be thus selective, thus picksome, is surely a virtue.