Not a fabulous read, but not terrible either. It's an altogether predictable storyline (yes, I knew Angus would get into the role, yes I knew Daniel and Lindsay would hook up,yes I knew the Pete's would transform, yes I knew the hovercraft would make a big play) and I found most of the characters - well, the ones that are developed in any significant way - cliché. The campy, Canadian humour was cute but a little much at times (see for example p. 52 where Lindsay remarks in amazement about the la More...

I had a rocky start with this book. The author clearly knows politics, but much less about academia - or at least, current academia. The idea that the protagonist was approached about a tenure track appointment a couple of months before the book began, and that the position was still open, and there weren't a stack of CVs from people applying for that job, that the protagonist could just call his old prof and waltz into a tenure-track job? Well, I don't know what the academic job market used to More...

OK, so you know that feeling when you've found the perfect book/song/band/child's name/whatever, and then shortly after it becomes popular? You know..."GAH! Why can't I just have this one thing to myself? Why do I always have to share? Now everybody's going to be talking about it/using it/slobbering all over it, and it's going to get overdone/overused/overanalyzed - this SUCKS!" Yeah...I totally didn't feel that when this book became the Canada Reads book. I was in a rut, not really enjoying the More...

Looking forward to planned CBC TV mini-series. terryfallis.com excerpts
The Best Laid Plans, from Robbie Burns' To A Mouse 1785, is a popular title. Terry Fallis, experienced in engineering and public relations, penned a podcast that grew and won the Steven Leacock Medal. Humor and honor, "passion for proper English" conquer the compromised democracy of Canadian politics. Yet p193 "through the ringer" should be wringer, two rollers that squeeze water from laundry.

At first, apparently autobiogra More...

When I first picked up Terry Fallis' novel which is described on the cover as a "satirical novel of Canadian politics" I wasn't expecting it to be very compelling -- I'm not much into politics, after all.

But this novel was compelling from the first word. I was immediately hooked by narrator Daniel Addison and his departure from the Canadian political scene to teach English to Engineers at Ottawa University.

I particularly enjoyed the hilarious and uniquely creative description of walking in on hi More...

The Best Laid Plans, by Terry Fallis, is, in my opinion, a perfect novel, deserving of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and of every accolade it receives. If you haven't yet read it you must, right now, rush out and purchase your very own copy; no, don't borrow one, buy your own because it will be a mainstay on your bookshelf for years to come.

Now, it's best to understand it's not easy to make me laugh, and I'm also a very critical reader; despite that Terry had me laughing myself silly wi More...

Daniel Addison is a former staffer for the Opposition Liberal Leader. He leaves Parliament Hill for a University position in the English department. But first,he needs to find and run a candidate in the safest Conservative riding in the country. Muriel Parkinson, the previous candidate five times over will help with the campaign, but not run for election again.

Daniel finally strikes a deal with his landlord, engineering professor Angus McLintock. Angus agrees to run, on the presumption that he d More...

The protagonist of this novel is a self-confessed lover of language, perhaps something of a projection of the author himself, so it will come as little surprise that the writing is colourful, flowing, and detailed. In many ways, it captures the style of Timothy Findley or William Faulkner whose writing I enjoy so much. I hope that Mr. Fallis won't take offense when I compare the flavour of the plot to one of my old "Who is Bugs Potter?" books: our protagonists face all manner of seemingly insurm More...

My book shelves are by no means crowded with political satire, but this first foray turned out to be a good one.

I came away from reading this much more aware of the decay of the 'nation-first' attitude and also how important that attitude is. I can't think of a time when I have even considered putting the interest of the country ahead of my own. For me the government exists to further my self-interests, at least inasmuch as my self-interests do not interfere with the self-interests of others. Th More...

While I generally enjoyed this book, the way Terry Fallis depicts the "typical" engineering student really bothered me. As someone who has recently graduated from an engineering program and attended conferences with engineering students from across Ontario, I can attest that the depiction of a first-year engineering student as someone who can barely put a sentence together but loves to read books on advanced calculus in their spare time is a tired stereotype. It isn't even the most recent stereo More...

This book was definitely a winner and every Canadian should read it! It pokes fun at our government structure while educating the reader on government procedure. Daniel (who has his doctorate in English) has been working as a executive assistant writing speeches for the Leader of the Opposition. He is tired of his job and wants to move into the university environment. The final straw comes after he stumbles upon his girlfriend of two years, performing one of those "and other duties as assigned" More...

The Stephen Leacock Awards committee has no credibility. The characters are two-dimensional stereotypes without insight or growth. The metaphors are overwrought, thickly-slathered (usually doubly-slathered), and flat. References to hockey and skating aren't funny just because they're Canadian. The dialogue is similarly dull. The plot is predictable and the romantic side-plot superficial and wholly without dramatic tension. Underdramatized, too, are the characters. They are most often indifferent More...

Funny, at parts really really funny and dripping of Canadiana - the book had me laughing out loud at various parts but the story didn't have me absolutely loving it. The main character didn't grab me but the older scot was good. I good book to read on a week's vacation.

A couple parts that grabbed me:

[when they are in power] they tend to erode public confidence in the democratic process and infect the electorate with the cynicism, self-interest, and opportunism that flow in their veins. In the m

More...

While elements of this book may seem humorous to the point of being ridiculous for some, many people who are bummed out by the political/social/media institutions of Canada will find a strong element of truth to it.

-From pg 61
"The Insanity, the surreal, the bizarre, had officially begun. I sat at my kitchen table, gargling orange juice and wondeing how I'd managed to put myself in this ludicrous position. I was running a phantom candidate, in a cash-strapped campaign we were sure to lose, aided More...

I recently finished reading The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis. It is definitely not my usual type of book, but I did thoroughly enjoy, much to my surprise. It is the One Book, One Community selection for 2010 for the Waterloo region, so I thought I would give it a try.

The book is about Canadian politics, and centres around an ex-speechwriter who is trying to leave politics and a university professor who agrees to be the Liberal candidate in a no-hope-to-win riding. It is very funny to read; I More...

I started reading The Best Laid Plans after listening to a few chapters of Fallis' follow-up, The High Road, which is available free from iTunes. While you don't need to have read The Best Laid Plans first, it's the backstory and so I downloaded it onto my Kindle (it was my first Kindle purchase!) and read it in a couple of sittings.

It's a very funny book, and won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2008. Telling the story of a reluctant Liberal candidate in a very Tory riding east More...

This winner of the Stephen Leacock Award and the Canada reads competition is without question a quintessentially Canadian pleasure. For those familiar with Ottawa and its political machinery, it offers an insider's delights - with playful references to political process, policies and protocols. His political characters appear thinly veiled references to some of the real players in this world. For example, one wonders if the two sign-defacing, street-thumping, political lackey Petes who gradually More...

I was a little worried when I picked this one up to read and discovered it was about Canadian politics. Any book on politics is enough to make me inwardly groan - fictional or non - there's something about politics that puts me into a coma.

Truthfully it's probably because I'm waaaaay to cynical and disillusioned. Too many promises and not enough to show for it all.... I dislike the inherent untruth to it all and it immediately sets my brain to numb and buzz so I can't take any of it in. *sigh* S More...

Ah, I loves me some Canadian political satire. Don't think I've had this much fun since King John of Canada (Scott Gardiner - go read it).

A young politico quits Ottawa when the blech factor gets to be too much, but he's "persuaded" to run one final campaign in a riding where the party has no hope in hell of winning a seat.

The last guy he bugs to stand up is a an Engineering Prof who desperately wants to get out of teaching English 101, and so a deal is struck. Then he finds a firecracker former More...

Combining humour with hard politics is not an easy feat. Fallis has accomplished this though in a witty, smart, enlightening book that many Canadians would enjoy. As an outsider to the house of commons, this inside look actually teaches a thing or two about how our government is run and keeps a tongue-in-cheek attitude towards the whole institution. The only downside was that I found the book slightly longer than it had to be and the diary entries at the end of each chapter provided little more More...

Winner of the Canada Reads "competition" to select a book of the last decade that best represents Canada, The Best Laid Plans was a good choice.

The story told by Daniel, a disillusioned speech writer whose one task upon leaving government is to find a strawman candidate in a losing race, is political, somewhat suspenseful, and quite funny. Daniel's candidate, Angus McLintock is a ornery Scots-Canadian widower who agrees to run just to get out of teaching a University class.

The writing is amusin More...

This is a novel about an employee of a Canadian political party (Liberal) who decides to change careers and, for reasons that aren't at all clear, must fullfill a final duty before moving on to his new job as a professor at the University of Ottawa. He must find a candidate to run in a riding near Ottawa which the Conservative party has held forever, and the incumbent is a popular Minister of Finance. The story unfolds predictably - a loveable but bright recently widowed curmudgeon agrees to run More...

A political satire from Canada? Really? Yes, indeed... and a thoroughly enjoyable read! I first met The Best Laid Plans when Terry Fallis (who, in full disclosure, I know professionally) started podcasting out the chapters in weekly episodes. I immediately got caught up in the story of Daniel and Angus and kept waiting impatiently for the next week's episode to come. Having lived in Ottawa for five years, it was fun to know some of the places and locations where events were taking place.

As a pol More...

This book grabbed my attention because it won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. Readers familiar with Leacock will understand why this novel won within its first few pages; Fallis uses humour to address some hefty issues in Canadian politics. His work can also be classified as local colour fiction, as it captures details of life in Ottawa that are familiar to those who live there (he nods to The Fulcrum, provides an accurate address for Liberal Party headquarters, and damns our winters).

Tha More...

This book may have changed my life by genuinely getting me interested in politics. That aside, it's a clever, humorous book with a unique plot. Really, there's nothing quite like this out there. However, Fallis's writing felt a bit awkward at times, particularly in the beginning, and he has the tendency to force the crude elements of the story. They work, (how else do you get major cred in the senior's home? Fall in some dog doo...) but aren't always integrated in the best way. It's almost like More...

Hmmm. I've got nothing against satire, but I'm afraid this one just didn't go far enough. It seems to owe a lot to that rather strange Newfie movie called Rare Birds where one of the characters spends a lot of time working on his RSV (recreational submarine vehicle). The tension between plausible and implausible just isn't sufficiently maintained here. I don't think you can have a book that earnestly explains parliamentary rules of procedure on the one hand while asking you to suspend disbelief More...

Daniel Addison has one thing left to do before is done with politics; he needs to find a candidate to run in the Tory stronghold of Cumberland-Prescott. Even though there is essentially no chance of a liberal candidate winning he is finding no one willing to take up the challenge. After speaking with every possible contender he turns to his landlord, Engineering Professor Angus McLintock. With essentially no fund, no campaign workers and no committed party representative, Daniel somehow has to r More...

Massachusetts Congressman Tip O'Neill famously said, "all politics is local." This seems like a general truth yet one subject to several important exceptions. If true, what of the political novel? A Huffington Post article from 2011 recommends new political novels and leads the list with Jonathan Franzen's Freedom and Ian MacEwan's Saturday. Both fine novels but more concerned with the effects of politics on ordinary people. By political novel I mean a work focussed on politicians, on institutio More...

This was a book club pick and since I don’t have a keen interest in politics it’s unlikely I would have read it on my own. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it more than I anticipated.

The characters were well developed and I especially enjoyed Angus; a crotchety and stubborn Scotsman. I visualized Angus as being slightly rough around the edges; a diamond in the rough. He was not afraid to speak his mind and often did so in a manner that was considered politically incorrect. Angus also had a softer side an More...

I'm finished now and the rating still stands - maybe to 4.5 stars if I could....I'm sad to see my time with Angus end and I won't be reading about him any longer. Great ending!!

Okay, so I still have 60 odd pages left, but I'm going to stop and say that I did really enjoy this book. How I love Angus! My favourite parts were always when he would so lovingly write a diary to his late-wife. I can just picture a burly and curmudgeonly old Scot sitting himself at a desk writing faithfully to her each More...