I have two copies of my favorite book, The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay: the first mass edition paperback printed in 1990, and a trade paperback edition I bought in 2002 while I was in Naval Justice School. When I read the book for the first time, in 1992, it was a brand new book. The pages were prisine, crisp and white. The cover was firm and un-creased.
I spent six weeks of the Summer of 1992 in Grand Manan, New Brunswick with my mother's best friend Ann, her husband Dick, my brother, and Kim, Ann's daughter, and my "little sister." At 16 years old, I could not appreciate the beauty and calm of the Island, and how quiet and boring peaceful and uncomplicated the summer was. At 31, I long for those mornings when I could wake up and walk outside to see the myst rolling down the hills, and the tide come flooding in. At the time, I was bored, and frustrated. There was no McDonalds, no skating rink, no shopping mall, and no boys. I was left with reading, cross stitch and nintendo, which does get old very quickly.
During my last week on the Island, I had finished every "teen" appropriate book and every romance novel Ann had in the house. I was desperate, and moved into Dick's stash of books. I cycled through the Hunt for Red October, some Richard North Patterson and into the various assorted other books. And then I picked up The Power of One, a book about a boy growing up in South Africa during Apartheid who aspired to be the welterweight champion of the world.
At the time I first read the book, I never imagined that a book that I never would have read otherwise, would prove to be the cornerstone of my personal beliefs fifteen years later.