By Yann Martel
Meet-up or post with tracking for additional 195jpy with tracking (payment in advance)
Stations for meet-up in principal are Oji station or Nishi-sugamo station, but if you work in Tokyo on Mondays, Thursdays or Friday, there may be a chance to meet-up on one of the subway lines.
ISBN 978184195425X
www.canongate.net
trade paperback
An amazing story, which I had read long before the movie came out.
"Since it won the 2002 Booker Prize, Life of Pi has gone on to sell nearly 2 million copies, it is the biggest selling winner of all time, and is widely regarded as a modern classic. It is a tale of disaster at sea. Both a boys' own adventure (for grown-ups) and a meditation on faith and the value of religious metaphor, it is one of the most extraordinary and original novels of recent times. In a new format, with a step-back cover, and with a new reading group guide, this is the ultimate edition of the book that is a perennial reading group favourite, and was recently featured in the Waterstone's list of the top 20 books of all time in the Daily Telegraph."
"Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion." At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. First published in 2002, Martel's breathtaking breakout novel became an international bestseller and went on to win the Man Booker Prize, and was also named Amazon.com's Best Book of 2002. In 2005, after an international competition, Croatian artist Tomislav Torjanac was selected to illustrate a special edition of Life of Pi that features 40 stunning illustrations that present a new perspective on this modern classic. --Brad Thomas Parsons"