When we drove to the south of France in the summer I prepared for a long, long drive. My brother lent me a book on CD, so I could listen as I drove. I’ve never been able to listen to books in the car before as I find the distances too short, I’m rarely in the car for more than an hour and that’s not enough time to get into the story. More than 10 hours in the car on the way through France however was perfect. It also got me an hour into the journey north at the end of the week too.
Life of Pi is a story of an Indian man, retelling a story of his youth (one of the nice things about the Audio CD was the accent of the narrator). His parents owned a zoo, they were moving to another country and the ship they were on sank. How interesting can a story be of a boy trapped on his own in a lifeboat? Ahh, I didn’t mention his friend “Richard Parker”. Richard happens to be a tiger, who also found himself on the lifeboat. It was a wonderful story, full of the unexpected and perhaps reason enough to travel to the south of France again (when else we I have that much time in the car). I find it hard writing about the books I’ve read as I don’t want to give away the story. This story is so unusual I can’t classify it as anything else other than a great read.
Interestingly while looking up the CD on Amazon for the image, Amazon recommended “The Time Travellers Wife” to go along with it. It seems my reading habits are predictable, I wonder if Amazon have a name for the type of books I’ve enjoyed reading? Maybe there are hundreds of other people out there liking and disliking exactly the same books.