WHAT IS STEPHEN HARPER READING?

I’m a big fan of Yann Martel, author of the book Life of Pi.

The banner at the top of my blog from his best selling book serves as a constant reminder to me to remain positive in the face of the challenge of cancer. In fact, the actual quote from Martel was suggested to me by mon ami Jacques six months before his own cancer odyssey.

For some reason, I imagined Yann Martel to be an elderly man from India whose famous novel was the recounting a story buried deep within the folklore of a distant culture. How shocked I was to discover that he is actually a forty nine year French Canadian living in Montreal who studied philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough.

My interest in Martel was piqued when I recently discovered that his latest book, What is Stephen Harper Reading? is the account of the author’s four year experiment involving our Prime Minister, an experiment that seems to parallel that of my clairvoyant friend Mark whom I wrote about in my last blog entry.

Twice a month for four years, Martel would mail a book to the Prime Minister and a letter explaining why he might read it. In total, he sent Harper one hundred and one books ranging from Dave Bidini’s Tropic of Hockey to Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Martel’s end game was to engage Harper in books that he thought might broaden our leader’s perspective but the PM appears to have snubbed the well intentioned Martel for reasons unknown.

A book reviewer in the Thornhill Post explains that “despite failing to meet his goal of reaching and corresponding with Stephen Harper, his latest book is a splendid read, and his letters outlining the books and what each might offer the intended reader are wonderful in and of themselves, in addition to inspiring readers to delve into the tomes.”

Unlike Life of Pi, I’m certain that What is Stephen Reading? will never be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.

However, maybe it can be morphed into an infomercial for FedEx that just might get Harper’s attention.