RM, Christchurch.

I would like to recommend to your readers a non-fiction book called ‘A Secret Gift’ by Ted Gup (published 2010). It’s the secret stories of people who were obliged to learn to live off the smell of an oily rag during the Great Depression, particularly Christmas of 1933. It doesn’t exactly list frugal hints, but the reader absorbs them in these life stores. Your column is my Poor People’s Vade Mecum (a reference book or manual). Thank you.