Horrendous, tedious, intellectually heady… these were some of the words thrown around at the PiCkLe Readers Group on Monday, January 7th. The book on the table for dissection was the Man Booker Award winning “Life of Pi” from Canadian author Yann Martel. It is a story of survival and spiritual quest. It is a story of a boy, a lifeboat and a 450 pound Bengal Tiger.

Who was Richard Parker really and can there be such a thing as a carnivorous island? The book is full of symbolism and odd references that have a deeper meaning when researched. But, most of our group stated that the book did not even encourage them to finish it let alone research the alternate meaning of “Richard Parker”.

Our group was intrigued by the concept of foot binding. None of us had much knowledge related to this practice and were surprised at the intensity of attaining the perfect white lillies. We did additional research on the internet pertaining to this practice and found many informative articles, a You Tube video, and additional pictures of a foot that had acheived the ultimate in foot binding. This was a well written book that presented historical information about traditions that we did not know about. Some of the author's liberties within the story line did not seem to be accurate historically but merely her impression of what "may of" happened, but over all this was a good book.