Book Review: Life of Pi by Yann Martell

Author: Yann Martel

Genre: Literary Fiction

I’ve actually had Life of Pi on my shelf for the longest time. I pick it up once and quit a couple of pages in the first time and only managed to give it another try earlier this month. Life of Pi is a story about Piscine Molitar Patel (or Pi as he prefers to be called), an Indian boy from Pondicherry who survives a shipwreck and being lost at sea for more than 200 days. The uniqueness of this story is not only of his survival but that he had survived the ordeal with the company of a 450- pound Royal Bengal tiger.

The book is divided into three parts:

The first part tells of Pi’s childhood; how he grew up amongst animals seeing that his parents own a zoo; and how he found religion at such a young age (actually he found three religions and not just one and became a practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim all at the same time).

In the second part, the ship Pi and his family boarded for their move to Canada suffers a shipwreck and Pi’s sea adventures begin with a unique group of survivors; a hyena, a zebra, a female orang-utan and a Royal Bengal tiger.

The third part of the book is Pi’s conversation with two maritime officials who seek to ascertain the cause of the shipwreck. He tells his story to the officials but they do not believe his version of the story. But as the officials dig deeper, they began to have a better understanding of Pi’s predicament and left a report stating Pi’s “story is unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks.”

It took a while for me to appreciate Life of Pi, especially the first part of the book. I thought that the pacing was slow but once I got into the second part, I found the book to be more interesting and carried on reading. I absolutely admire Martel’s writing style which was so detailed that it makes up for (what I felt was) a slow plot delivery. Martel’s writing was so excellent that at times I felt like I was on the same boat with Pi.

Overall, I found Life of Pi to be a good read, not excellent but good. Still, even though I found it to only be a good read, I'd recommend it to anyone. Life of Pi was an interesting read because it explores faith and the ability of the human mind to adapt and survive the worst ordeal a human being can handle. A definite must read.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenges

Book Review: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Author: Malcolm Gladwell

Genre: Non-Fiction, Social Sciences

In Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell studies the factors that could lead to a person’s success and even failures. In this book Gladwell provided excellent examples from rock & roll bands to professional athletes to successful lawyers and what factors contribute to their success or non-success.

This is actually the first book that I’ve read from Gladwell and I truly enjoyed reading it, so much so that I’ve made it one of my favourite reads for 2010. What I liked about the book is that the author managed to put across facts in an interesting way making it far from boring for the readers. I found the book to be very insightful. The strongest message one would walk away with after reading the book is that success is influenced by many factors from up-bringing to education, the state of the economy, the right opportunity and many more; no one can achieve it on their own.

I absolutely love this book and would recommend it to anyone. I’m also looking forward to reading other books from Malcolm Gladwell.

If you'd like to find out more about the author or any of his books, you can visit the official website here.

Challenges: 100+ Reading Challenge

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Is a weekly event hosted by Sheila from Book Journey.

I’ve had a great reading week last week and managed to read three books that have been laying idle on my bookshelves for the longest time. Unfortunately, I just haven’t had the time to review the books yet for my blog.

Anyway, last week I read: 

1.  Life of Pi, Yann Martel 
2. Generation Dead, Daniel Water
3. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

This week, I’ve decided to read yet another book that has been on my shelf (like forever); Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I’ve just started reading it this morning so hopefully it will be an enjoyable read. I’ve read really mixed reviews on the book and it seems like you’ll either hate the book or love it. 

Anyways, have a good reading week ahead everybody!

Friday Finds: 5 November 2010

What great books did you hear about/discover this past week? Share with us your FRIDAY FINDS! This is a weekly blog event hosted by Should Be Reading.

 

Only two books caught my eye this week. First is Joshua Ferris’s The Unnamed which I came across randomly online. I’ve read his first book, Then We Came to the End and I really loved it, click here if you'd like to read my review. I’m hoping that the second book would be as good as his first.

 

I also came across many reviews on Cassandra Clark’s Clockwork Angel. The book looks interesting just that I read somewhere that I have to read The Mortal Instruments Series first in order to understand Clockwork Angel better. I’m not sure if this is true seeing that a Clockwork Angel is meant to be the prequel to The MI Series.

Anyway those are the two books that caught my attention. There are two book sales happening in KL this week and I’ll probably have more finds to share in the next post.

In the meantime, have a great reading week y'all. 

The Walking Dead

I seriously can’t wait for the premiere of The Walking Dead on the 5^th of November! I absolutely love, love, love zombie flicks. The series was released on Halloween in the US and apparently received great response. I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait!!!

The Walking Dead premieres this Friday at 11pm on FX HD (Astro Channel 726). Woohooooo! If you haven't seen the trailer, here it is:

Ps- apparently there were zombies spotted around KL to promote the premiere. Anyone seen them?  

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Is a weekly event hosted by Sheila from Book Journey.

This week I’m reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Truthfully, it’s my second attempt at reading Life of Pi. The last time I picked it up, I had to quit halfway; not because I didn’t find the book interesting but just that the environment then was not conducive for me to concentrate on the book fully.

Anyway, my second attempt at reading the book looks more promising than the first and I am enjoying the book much more than before. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish Life of Pi by the end of this week. In the meantime, I hope everyone will have a good reading week!

Muaks!