"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

I bought The Road in early February, shortly after David Plotz endorsed it on the Slate Political Gabfest. I had never read McCarthy, or seen a film based on one of his works (which has obviously changed since the release of No Country for Old Men), but the way Plotz described the setting and tone of the novel intrigued me. And I was rather disappointed with the book I had been reading at that time (Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner), so my hopes for The Road were high.

I am an incredibly slow reader. I take weeks, sometimes months to finish a novel. That's (partly) because there is a very narrow window for me in which I get around to read. I am constantly surrounded by music, video and text, and it takes some effort to let all that go and concentrate on one thing only.

Not so with this book. I went through The Road in record time, fully captured by the narrative, always wanting to know what happens next. McCarthy's writing is minimalistic and sparse, but at the same time the most moving and powerful I have ever read.

Highly recommended.