The Road - by Cormac McCarthy

I was slightly daunted by this book. Although it is not excessively long [about 300 pages], there are reviews on the back cover suggesting it is worthy of the Nobel Prize for Literature. I tend to dismiss books that win such awards as being too highbrow and hard work for a casual reader like myself. But I was wrong ...

The story is about a man and his son making a trek across a post-apocalyptic [burnt] America. We are never told their names or precisely what the nature of the prior destruction was. Was it a nuclear war, or was it a natural disaster [like the eruption of the Yellowstone super-volcano]? What we are told is a lot of detail about the world in which they find themselves, which is portrayed very graphically. Equally, their state of mind and feelings and those of people they encounter is clearly conveyed.

I found the book totally compelling and read it surprisingly quickly, finding it quite un-put-downable. It certainly helped a long flight pass comfortably. Highly Recommended.