University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

This book surprised me. It is like nothing I have ever read before. Pi Patel, the main character, is a boy who finds himself on a freighter with his family transporting zoo animals to North America. When the freighter sinks, he manages to get on a life boat, which he shares with a spotted hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The hyena ends up killing the zebra and the orangutan. The tiger then emerges from hiding and eats the hyena. Pi manages to keep from becoming a meal himself during his 227 days at sea with the tiger. Weak, hungry, and thirsty, Pi and Richard Parker eventually come upon a deserted, floating island of algae. At first the island appears to be a paradise. It has all the food they need and pools of fresh water to drink. Ultimately, Pi figures out that the island is carnivorous, and he and Richard leave it behind. Later, when Pi is back on land, he is not believed. "Your island is botanically impossible." Pi replies: "Said the fly just before landing in the Venus flytrap." Come to find out, vegetative, floating islands actually do exist. To my knowledge, however, no one has discovered a carnivorous one yet. From time to time, I now find myself wondering, might they be out there somewhere?