What to Read: The Road

Yeah, it's an Oprah book club choice, but I didn't choose it because of that. The back of the book summary looked interesting! The book is The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,” are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

I've spoken before of reading books as the spoken word - audio books. I really enjoy this form since I can be reading at the same time I work, walk the kids to the bus, cook, clean, or whatever. I load the book onto my mp3 player and listen away.

So far, this has been interesting - I'm on the 2nd of 6 CDs, unabridged. So far, I'd recommend it!