Photo: courtesy of La Maison Anglaise

The Soul of All Great Designs by Neil Bissoondath , 224 pages, Cormorant Books, 2008, $29 (hardcover).

Who are we? What if who we truly are lies not in the truths we are willing to reveal about ourselves to others but what we withhold from them: our secrets?  Is the balance we strike between that which we share and that which we keep to ourselves what makes us who we are?