Piece of Pi

Last fall, I read the Man Booker-prize winning novel, The Life of Pi, by Canadian author Yann Martel. While it had been recommended by various reviewers, I didn't pick it up until I started to read it at the bookstore, and I was enchanted. The beginning is a thank you from the author to a man for telling him about the boy who the book is based on, who eventually ends up on a raft with a tiger in the ocean. Read it here. Trust me, it's very magical. The main character's family runs a zoo in Pondicherry India, and Martel's descriptions are so beautiful, I assumed there was or had been a zoo. But, this Times articles says that apparently there is none - though they are now thinking of building one. Life imitates art again.