Max and the Cats number of zoo animals caged in the hold—but after being rescued and making a life for himself in Brazil continues to find his German past impossible to escape. The novel came to widespread public attention in 2002 when Canadian writer Yann Martel won the Man Booker Prize for "Life of Pi". Martel's novel is about a boy, Pi, who finds himself trapped on a boat with a tiger after the ship he and his family are sailing on sinks. The family were zookeepers, and the animals they were transporting in the hold sink with the rest of the ship, except
2012 Man Booker Prize he liked a novel to "zip along". Critics alleged that literary quality was ignored, and Robert McCrum of "The Observer" declared the nominations "one of the worst-ever shortlists". Rimington responded to the criticism by claiming that "[p]eople weirder than me have chaired the Booker." Alex Clark, also of "The Observer", called the controversy a "straw man debate", contending that the shortlisted writers were "no more – and no less — "readable" than many other writers." Even McCrum had to admit that the winner, Julian Barnes for his "The Sense of an Ending", was worthy of the prize. The 2012 jury