Reading Challenge 18: A Book With a Blue Cover

I must admit I don’t usually choose my books based on the color of the cover. I considered just going to the library and picking a random title that fit this requirement, but I eventually just decided to pick something I already had on my reading list and that was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. And since Life of Pi has so much water in it, the cover of my copy happens to be blue.

The story begins with Piscine Motorel Patel, known as Pi, a young Indian boy who is fascinated by religion and by zoology. He’s spent his life growing up surrounded by a zoo his father runs. But a time eventually comes when his family decides to make a journey to Canada to begin a new life. However, in the middle of his voyage, Pi becomes marooned in a lifeboat with several zoo animals, most frightening of all a ferocious Bengal tiger. The story follows his struggle for survival.

So one of the tough things to do is to honestly evaluate a book when you’ve seen the movie before reading the story. Because having already seen the movie, definitely spoiled some things in the book. For me, I think that’s the reason I usually prefer reading the book first.

Nonetheless, I still thought the story was very interesting. The book seemed to develop some much more existential themes about religion, story, and human vs. beast. I really enjoyed thinking more on those alongside enjoying the great story. This book also did make a good movie with all the visual appeal, and I also enjoyed the movie more in some respects because it was less graphic than the book.

So there were definitely benefits to both formats, but overall I appreciated both. They both tell an incredible story, and I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for that.

Have you ever picked a book for its cover? What would you choose to complete this challenge? Any thoughts on books to movies?

Here is a book challenge I did not make. Click it to find the original source.

Previous Posts:

1. A Book You Own But Haven’t Read

2. A Book that was Made into a Movie

3. A Book You Pick Solely for the Cover

4. A Book Your Friend Loves

5. A Book Published this Year

7. A Book by an Author You Love

9. A Book with a Color in the Title

10. A Book Set Somewhere You’ve Always Wanted to Visit

11. A Book You Started but Never Finished

12. A Book with a Lion, a Witch, or a Wardrobe

14. A Book Set in Summer

15. A Book of Poems

16. A Book You Learned About Because of this Challenge

17. A Book that Will Make You Smarter

19. A Book You Were Supposed to Read in School but Didn’t

20. A Book EVERYONE but You Has Read

21. A Book with a Great First Line

22. A Book with Pictures

24. A Book You Loved…Read it Again!

25. A Book that is More than Ten Years Old

26. A Book Based on a True Story