Presidential reading lists have a tendency to set Washington abuzz.

Last month, when the Wall Street Journal reported that President Barack Obama was reading Gordon Goldstein’s “Lessons in Disaster,” pundits wondered if the book about the mistakes of the Vietnam War might hold clues to the president’s thinking on his Afghanistan strategy.

Yesterday, during a Reuters interview, when Obama asked what I was reading with my 12-year-old son (”Great Expectations”), he revealed that he was reading the best-selling fantasy-adventure book “Life of Pi.”

His 11-year-old daughter, Malia, is reading it on her own and Obama, who read the Harry Potter series to her when she was younger, finds it compelling too.

“It’s a wonderful book,” Obama said of the prize-winning novel by Yann Martel about an Indian boy cast adrift in a lifeboat with a tiger, a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan.

“There are whole…chapters that really have to do with talking about Hinduism and Christianity and comparing it … there’s a lot of philosophical stuff in there,” Obama said. “But for some reason she’s hanging in there.”

Without revealing the ending, Obama may be in for a nasty surprise… (if you want a hint click here.)

Click here for more Reuters political coverage

Photo credit: Reuters/Peter MacDiarmid (Author Yann Martel after winning Booker Prize for Fiction 2002 for “Life of Pi”)