While reading group’s on hold, I’ve been reading a few books too long to get on the list – Anna Karenina currently. Never having read Tolstoy, I can immediately see why he’s so revered. Wonderful writing. He’s even given me a new word I hadn’t come across:  arbeitskur.

From one brother to another, after the latter returns from a day labouring in the field with the peasants. But what does it actually mean?

In other words, the idea that there is some health/therapeutic benefit to be had from a programme of honest physical toil. Which strikes me as eminently plausible.