Yann Martel, whose Life of Pi won the Man Booker prize, has come up with his own form of direct action: every second Monday, he sends a book to the Canadian prime minister, Stephen Harper. If the PM will not follow the arts, the arts must come to him – by post.

And he’s not screwing around when it comes to which titles to send:

These are not just any books, mind; Mr Harper is a busy man, so what he gets is short and accessible. As light reading, they can still be pretty heavy: Tolstoy; Hindu scriptures; this fortnight’s selection is Strindberg’s Miss Julie. Such texts, the writer says, “expand stillness”; just what a head of state needs after an infernal day’s politics.

Wonder if he sends reading guide questions as well . . .