I just finished listening to Life of Pi by Yann Martel.  It was not quite what I expected, but I enjoyed it.  Looking at the cover and reading the blurb on the back, I expected a fast-paced survival story about a shipwrecked boy stranded on a life boat with a tiger.  It is a story of survival, and Pi Patel does survive for 227 days at sea with the company of a Bengal tiger, but Pi is a reflective narrator who will not be rushed in telling his story.  Interspersed with the story of his life, Pi shares his knowledge of his two great passions:  zoology and religion.  It is his thoughtfulness, though, that enabled his survival at sea.