'The great thing about reading books is that it makes us better than cats. Cats are said to have nine lives. What is that compared to the girl, boy, man, woman who reads books? A book read is a life added to one’s own. So it takes only nine books to make cats look at you with envy.
And I’m not talking here only of “good” books. Any book—trash to classic—makes us live the life of another person, injects us with the wisdom and folly of their years. When we’ve read the last page of a book, we know more, either in the form of raw knowledge—the name of a gun, perhaps—or in the form of greater understanding. The worth of these vicarious lives is not to be underestimated. There’s nothing sadder—or sometimes more dangerous—than the person who has lived only his or her single, narrow life, unenlightened by the experience, real or invented, of others."
These are the words of Yann Martel, Canadian author of The Life of Pi. Martel is sending a book every two weeks to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada. Why Martel is doing this is a long and intriguing story. His choices and the accompanying comments explaining his selection are priceless. If you are interested in reading along with Prime Minster Harper, the first book was The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy because, says Martel, "I can’t think of a work of such brevity, hardly 60 pages, that shows so convincingly the power and depth of great literature." So here it is online: The Death of Ivan Ilych. (Next up is Animal Farm by GeorgeOrwell.)
And I’m not talking here only of “good” books. Any book—trash to classic—makes us live the life of another person, injects us with the wisdom and folly of their years. When we’ve read the last page of a book, we know more, either in the form of raw knowledge—the name of a gun, perhaps—or in the form of greater understanding. The worth of these vicarious lives is not to be underestimated. There’s nothing sadder—or sometimes more dangerous—than the person who has lived only his or her single, narrow life, unenlightened by the experience, real or invented, of others."
These are the words of Yann Martel, Canadian author of The Life of Pi. Martel is sending a book every two weeks to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada. Why Martel is doing this is a long and intriguing story. His choices and the accompanying comments explaining his selection are priceless. If you are interested in reading along with Prime Minster Harper, the first book was The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy because, says Martel, "I can’t think of a work of such brevity, hardly 60 pages, that shows so convincingly the power and depth of great literature." So here it is online: The Death of Ivan Ilych. (Next up is Animal Farm by GeorgeOrwell.)
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