20B20W - 10th book, Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones

Mister Pip is one of those awesome books written once in a generation combining the affection of a bibliophile and the art of storytelling, while mixing in some dark human character - sort of Jasper Fforde meets Ray Bradbury meets William Golding. The book deals with the story of a tropical island where an eccentric man reads out Great Expectations by Charles Dickens to his students (who have no school otherwise), a chapter a day and how their strife-ridden island is changed by it.

I have special love for the book since it pays homage to Charles Dickens, the first author I read in English (or any other language) over two and a half decades ago. My imagination in those days was developed by conceiving scenes based on Dickens' words. It took me a while to digest that it was only a story and that most of the sadness I was experiencing (I actually cried when I read Oliver Twist by Dickens and several times actually after other books by Dickens and others) was due to the pure power of words. The author as seen thru the kids in this book especially the protagonist Mathilda are not unlike what I used to be when I was younger.

Please read it if you love storytelling in general and books in particular. It is an amazing heartwarming work.

p.s. I can't believe it got beaten by any book for the Booker. Makes a serious case for reading Enright's book, which sits in a box in Bangalore now.