The movie is so astoundingly good that I can't really imagine the book being better. Much like the Great Gatsby movie, it fully embraces the visual and auditory medium of film to embellish and extrapolate upon the story's themes in ways literature simply isn't able to. The opening scene alone, displaying the raw beauty of nature, is impossible to convey solely through words.

Still, definitely wanna give Life of Pi a read. Who knows? Odds are, it actually will somehow be better than the movie, as these things usually are.