It's the story of Piscine, who at 16 finds himself shipwrecked with a bunch of animals...well if you can call 4 a bunch. It's survival of the fittest as he drifts at sea with a bengal tiger. Well technically he finds himself adrift at sea with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and a bengal tiger. And then the hyena eats the zebra after reading his fate in the zebra's intestines, and now I am firmly entrenched in the anti-hyena fan club. Sorry Disney's Lion King.
And then one day Richard Parker, the bengal tiger, ate the hyena and I was all YAY! go Richard Parker.
And now I kind of want a tiger-striped cat that I can name Richard Parker.
And love him forever.
And when Richard Parker got bit by a shark I was certain he was going to get an infection and die.
But wait...this book is about Piscine. Piscine finds among the safety supplies in his raft a survival guide. I'm fairly sure that I'd need one if I was going to live for more than a day adrift at sea. I think I was most intrigued by the solar stills Piscine had in his survival kit. They were his primary means of getting fresh drinking water. I guess I thought that even with today's technology it wasn't as straightforward as it seems to make ocean water potable. I also was surpised to read that Piscine's survival guide said that a human could survive 14 days without water as long as they weren't losing very much to sweat. And that most of thirst is psychological. If you feel thirsty, you should try sucking on a button.
Yep. Pretty sure I'd be a goner if that was me.
While I was looking up all things sea faring related, like what the heck a tarpaulin is, I discovered that Life if Pi is being made into a movie. It comes out this November. I'd go see it. You should too, after you've read the book of course.
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