Deservedly shortlisted for the 2007 Man Booker Prize and winner of the 2007 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip is a memorable tribute to the power of words to give people focus, hope and courage. When a remote village on a Pacific island is blockaded during a civil war, the island’s only white man, Mr Watts, reopens the school and bolsters the spirits of the children and eventually of the entire community by taking them by memory through Dickens’ Great Expectations. For many, the life of Pip becomes more real to them than the surreal and increasingly frightening and shocking events occurring around them. The story is told from the point of view of Matilda, one of the children, and her journey to pay her respects to Mr Watts and find closure many years later meanders a bit and makes the end of this novel feel a bit ragged, but this is otherwise a stunning and beautiful work.

This is one of the titles selected by writer Yann Martel to provide to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to encourage an appreciation of the arts and literature in particular in the PM, and to also help him with his stillness and thoughtfulness. Martel has regularly sent books from a wide range of literary traditions to Harper, and has devoted a Web site to the book list and his kind and considered covering letters with each volume.

“You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.”