The Road

It's not often that I will pick up a book with Oprah Winfrey's seal of approval on it. Regardless, I hurried to the library in which I volunteer to pick up Cormac McCarthy's The Road as soon as a friend described it to me. It's always hard for me to judge something as the best, or my favorite. I would be hard pressed to deny this book of either of those titles.

The Road is a haunting tale of a father and son traveling south in a world that no longer lives. Almost all humans and every other living thing in the world is dead; the world is a desolate and ash-covered wasteland. The son's innocence and the father's anguish is almost too much to bear in contrast to their sterile surroundings. The story is told in short vignettes comprised of elegant prose. The suspense created by the duo dodging cannibalistic survivors, and their own hunt for nourishment makes the novel read almost too quickly. I will leave you with one of my favorite lines from the book.

"Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."