I just finished reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. It's a fascinating novel, really well-written, thought-provoking, problematic and totally engrossing. The ending was particularly controversial in my house.
The high-concept pitch is: a young boy survives a shipwreck and winds up in a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger. While there is a "man vs. nature" survival aspect to the book, it's also a meditation on religion, God, zoos, storytelling and family. There are surprising laugh-out-loud moments, too. I found the author's writing style to be very similar to Kurt Vonnegut's, a favorite of mine.
Anyway, it's not a perfect book but certainly an enjoyable one and extremely well done. It will provoke many a conversation with other readers of the book, indicated by the numerous Life of Pi "book club guides" available on the web.
Side note: The story is pretty much unfilmmable as a live-action movie. That said, I think it could make an excellent animated film in the right hands. I cannot stop thinking about what it would be like to see what Hayao Miyazaki would do with the source material. All the Miyazaki elements are there: child protagonist, ocean, the animal kingdom, nature, surreal settings, the bizarre combination of "benevolent malevolence" that you see in all his work. I want to see this movie! How can I get him to read the book???
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