Karl's Reading List

Published by Oxford University Press: Great Britain, 1992 (1987). First published in 1894 (The First Jungle Book) and 1895 (The Second Jungle Book). I probably could have broken this "book" in half, considering that it consists of both "The First Jungle Book" and "The Second Jungle Book", but as both Jungle Books are really just a collection of short stories - many of which (though far from all) are about Mowgli - they work together as one larger collection. Though, considering the whole collection as one book  did mean I messed up my reading challenge slightly (see the previous entry). What surprised me about the Jungle Books as a whole is that there are so many non Mowgli stories. We get a tale about a mongoose, a few from the perspective of humans that can't talk to animals, and even a few set in the Arctic region - which really stretches the idea of "jungle"...! Each of them feels a little like a folk tale or fable, and apparently some of...

Published by Paul Brand Publishing: Seattle, WA, 1976. Granny Brand is a missionary biography with a bit of a difference. This is the life story of Evelyn Brand (nee Harris), who went to India as a missionary, fell in love with and married fellow missionary Jesse Brand, and then carried on working in India following Jesse's death from blackwater fever. What makes Evelyn so different from most of the missionaries you read about in these sort of books is that she is portrayed throughout as a fairly stubborn, strong-willed, slightly argumentative woman, happy to butt heads with anyone who doesn't see eye to eye with her. She reminds us that God is looking for willing hearts, rather than particular personalities. In fact, Evelyn's personality helps her to continue ministering in the 'Mountains of Death' region of India even after she officially retires from missionary service. The mission organisation overseeing that region are occasionally shown to be opposed to her ch...

Published by Canongate Books: Great Britain, 2008 (2002). I knew quite a lot about the general plot of this book before I began reading, thanks to reviews about it when it first came out, as well as having seen at least part of the Oscar-winning film version. Life of Pi tells the story of Piscine Molitor Patel, who starts by growing up as the son of a zookeeper in India and choosing to follow three religions simultaneously, and later on ends up adrift in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a Bengal tiger. With a plot like that, I knew the book would be somewhat 'quirky', but I wasn't expecting the level of humour, or the level of insight within it. The three religions thing is a bit odd, but then, so is the character of Pi. To him, the three religions of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity all overlap in numerous ways: "Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hin...