Recycle Your Tech Books: What Is Yann Martel Reading Now?
The web – as we know it – is used for all kinds of things… commerce, knowledge sharing, communications. Sometimes those activities are not so good… identity theft, child abuse, spam. Sometimes the web is just a tool to show off one’s arrogance.
Consider the case of Yann Martel . If you’re not familiar with The Yann, he’s a Canadian author famous for writing the one-hit-wonder “Life of Pi”. This 2003 book won numerous international awards. It was later discovered that sections of the book appeared to have plagiarized a book by Brazilian autor Moacyr Scliar . I guess Yannoo has run out of inspiration lately – so he’s turned to the web creating the site “What’s Stephen Harper Reading Now?” The premise is that he sends the Canadian Prime Minister his favourite books insisting that he reads them. Yann has been whinning a lot lately because apparently the PM isn’t taking up the offer. And why should Harper read his stupid books? How arrogant of Martel. I used to send some of my favourite Grateful Dead albums to Jean Chretien, but I never expected that he’d actually listen to them!
In fairness to Mister Martel, I’d like to help him through this difficult time. That’s why we’re launching the “What tech-book is Yann Martel reading now” program… helping Yann to become as smart as we are. 
So dig out your old MS-DOS for Dummies, Using WordPerfect 3, Your Guide to OS 7, and COBOL Made Easy… and mail them to:
Yann Martel
c/o McClelland & Stewart Ltd.
75 Sherbourne Street, 5th Floor
Toronto, Ontario
M5A 2P9
I’m kicking it off with this rivetting page-burner: ASP .Net 2.0 AJAX!
Too funny. It does make you wonder what Harper reads most days. It’d be nice to have an idea what’s being fed into the machine that governs. I do hope not just Yann books!
[Life of Pi spoiler warning]:
I hear they want to make a movie out of the Life of Pi, Hun? Isn’t the whole point of the book that you’re meant to imagine what’s taking place on the raft? Am I the only one who read that book thinking the animals weren’t actually animals but were only described as such for the sake of the story teller?
Mitch: I can’t believe you published Yann’s address, you’re not holding any punches with this one, man that’s a bit.. well.. you having a bad day?
Yann: If you want to publish Mitch’s address, just let me know.
Hey Jobe,
Let’s make a movie ourselves! Preparing to mail a tech book – going to Canada Post to weight the options…. and mailing. Once the publisher signs for the delivery, maybe we can record an audio interview!
Bad Day???
Meh!