The essays in this book include some of the subjects that fascinated Primo Levi - the house he lived in all his life, butterflies and spiders, imaginary creatures dreamed up by children, Rabelais, writing a novel, returning to school at 60 and the need for fear. Throughout the book there are glimpses of long lost childhood summers, his grandparents, adolescence and, most importantly, his writing. The book, which is near to autobiographical of Levi's post-Auschwitz years, conveys his conviction that though "we are living in an epoch rife with problems and perils, it is not boring".