Toronto Reference Library Blog

101 Letters to a Prime Minister,  The complete letters to Stephen Harper
by Yann Martel

Every two weeks, for almost two years, Canadian author, Yann Martel (Life of Pi) mailed a book to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Inside the cover of each book was a letter in which  Martel discussed  the literary work.  Why did Martel do this?  Martel contends that literature  is 'an essential element to a deep thinking, fully feeling mind. A mind not informed by the thoughtful product of the novel, the play, the poem, will be capable perhaps of administering the affairs of a people, maintaining the status quo, but  not of truly leading that people.'

 Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough, The Medical Lives of Famous Writers by John J. Ross M.D.

A Harvard Medical School professor discusses in sometimes gruesome detail, Milton's blindness, Swift's deafness and dementia and the various maladies of Bronte, Hawthorne, Melville, Yeats, Joyce and Orwell. 

Kurt Vonnegut Letters edited by Dan Wakefield 
Personal correspondence written over a sixty year period to high school friends, family and other writers.

Read a review of this book

 Both Flesh and Not – Essays by David Foster Wallace
The first, posthumous collection of David Foster Wallace's nonfiction work, spanning 20 years.

 Read a review of this book

These titles are available in the Languages and Literature Department at the Toronto Reference Library. 101 Letters to a Prime Minister – The complete letters to Stephen Harper is also available as a downloadable ebook.

101 Letters to a Prime Minister,  The complete letters to Stephen Harper
by Yann Martel

Every two weeks, for almost two years, Canadian author, Yann Martel (Life of Pi) mailed a book to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Inside the cover of each book was a letter in which  Martel discussed  the literary work.  Why did Martel do this?  Martel contends that literature  is 'an essential element to a deep thinking, fully feeling mind. A mind not informed by the thoughtful product of the novel, the play, the poem, will be capable perhaps of administering the affairs of a people, maintaining the status quo, but  not of truly leading that people.'

 Shakespeare's Tremor and Orwell's Cough, The Medical Lives of Famous Writers by John J. Ross M.D.

A Harvard Medical School professor discusses in sometimes gruesome detail, Milton's blindness, Swift's deafness and dementia and the various maladies of Bronte, Hawthorne, Melville, Yeats, Joyce and Orwell. 

Kurt Vonnegut Letters edited by Dan Wakefield 
Personal correspondence written over a sixty year period to high school friends, family and other writers.

Read a review of this book

 Both Flesh and Not – Essays by David Foster Wallace
The first, posthumous collection of David Foster Wallace's nonfiction work, spanning 20 years.

 Read a review of this book

These titles are available in the Languages and Literature Department at the Toronto Reference Library. 101 Letters to a Prime Minister – The complete letters to Stephen Harper is also available as a downloadable ebook.