Khaled chooses all my books

I was looking for a new book to read a few weeks back when I hopped onto the Barnes and Noble website. Having read The Kite Runner a few years back, then A Thousand Splendid Suns, I searched to see if this favorite author had any new gems that I had yet to discover. No new ones, but I did see a feature on the website that intrigued me: Meet the Writer. About midway down on the column, Hosseini lists his ten favorite books including a "what makes them so great" spiel.

My geometry teacher would be so proud:
I (H) enjoy Khaled's books (K) (so H = K)
he enjoys several books(B) (so K = B)
therefore, by transitive property, I would also enjoy them
(H = B).

That is how I mathematically discovered Life of Pi.

There is absolutely no reason why this book should be awesome. It is an unlikely story about a boy named Pi (as in 3.14) who is lost at sea with a tiger (as in Panthera Tigris) named Richard Parker. There's a story behind the name. Pi's and Richard Parker's. At 420+ pages, there's a lot of fishing, burning, enduring storms and fighting for survival. In fact, the actual plot doesn't even get started until about 150 pages into the book.

And yet.

The story will stay with me for the rest of my days. The book is fantastic on so many levels. Its similes and metaphors, analogies, and descriptive writing alone make the book drip red velvet (yum). It creates sharp contrasts between what is expected and what happens. It compares zoology and religion. The battle is as much about boy vs. cat as it is about hopelessness vs. faith. Even in the midst of horror is humor. And the last few pages. Blew. Me. Away.

I've avoided coming to a definite conclusion about the book mostly because I think that the way I interpret the book will say something about me. Kind of like the old "how do you see the glass?" type thing.

I'd love to sit and chat with you about what you think it's all about.

Since he's proven reliable, I've decided to stick with Khaled's choices for a while.

Next on my list is Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True.