My Rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Best Laid Plans is Terry Fallis' first book and winner of the Steven Leacock Award for Humor in 2008.
Daniel Addison, a head speech writer and political aide in Ottawa for the Liberal party, decides he has had enough of the grind working on Parliament Hill. So he resigns to pursue a teaching position at the University of Ottawa.
However, he promises to do one final task. He agrees to find a Liberal candidate to run in the Cumberland-Prescott riding in the upcoming election - a riding that is staunchly Tory, so the Liberals have no chance or hope in winning. The job for Daniel is to find any breathing person willing to enter the race, run the campaign, and then be done with politics. He does find a reluctant soul, and hilarity ensues.
I definitely enjoy Fallis' style of writing - it is humorous and easy reading. I wasn't certain how well I would appreciate the politics part of the story line, but I did!
This is my second book read for the 11th Annual Canadian Book Challenge.
This keeps coming up in Canadian books and I keep forgetting to ask you: what's a riding?
ReplyDeleteGood question Mary :) I didn't even think about the fact that isn't a term 'down here'. I admit I just gooogled to get the best description...a riding is an electoral district, so maybe similar to a ward here, but not exactly the same. It would be equivalent to voting for the person who represents your area in DC...and your riding being your area that you voted in. Clear as mud, right?
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