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| Author: Cormac Mccarthy
Publisher: Vintage Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $4.16
You Save: $10.79 (72%)
New (103) Used (214) Collectible (1) from $4.16
Avg. Customer Rating:  1480 reviews
Sales Rank: 61
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 287
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307387895
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780307387899
ASIN: 0307387895
Publication Date: March 28, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Great Book. In Good condition I will combine shipping.
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| Customer Reviews:
 "Run, he whispered. Run." July 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is the first book that I have read by McCarthy. I don't really know why, I just had this idea that I wasn't going to like his work very much. Something that I heard once about All the Pretty Horses struck me the wrong way. I am not sure what it was that I thought that I wouldn't like.
In any case, I bought The Road because a co-worker was convinced that I would love the book. And he was right, I do-- although "love" is a funny kind of word to relate to post-apocalyptic fiction.
What do you need to know about this book before you read it? Nothing much beyond what almost everyone knows. This is a story about a man and a boy, set in a post-apocalyptic USA. We aren't told what happened, and all question of "why" has fallen away.
There's a lot of things to take away from the novel. Hope as an impulse even after hope is irrational. The drive to keep living, even when the dead might well be the lucky ones. (One maudlin writer after another has suggested this idea, but in this book McCarthy posits a world where it might actually be literally true.) There's also something about the people who consider themselves the "good guys". And then again, the idea that there really are no good guys in the inferno. Unlike in Beckett, the journey of these characters actually leads somewhere. But it is by no means certain that somewhere is better than the place where one began. Manufactured hope.
I really liked McCarthy's prose style. Perhaps because my own sentences are long and loopy, I really enjoy the short economical phrases. I will definitely be picking up another McCarthy sometime soon. I would recommend this book to virtually all readers. While the subject is forbidding, it is perfectly accessible as text.
The Road was the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Let me know in the comments if you would particularly recommend another of his novels.
Incredible novel! July 20, 2008
As I read this dark tale, I felt as if I were walking down that same road and it was a terrifying trip. I don't want to be around if and when something like this happens to this planet.
You owe it to yourself to read this masterpiece!
 Mr. McCarthy needs some serious meds July 20, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
What a sad state of affairs when all someone as talented as this guy is with words can come up with is this bleakscape of a novel that goes nowhere, adds nothing to our understanding of what life is, and forces the reader to pitch this manic depressive tell all into the fireplace and go out and build a few new nuclear power plants. This is just more of the humans are the devil and the earth would be better off without us silliness. Cormac, please take some of your money that these poor folks who thnk this is 'deep stuff' spend on this self flagellation of yours and get some therapy. Human life is a really joyful thing and please try to lift folks up with your considerable talent with words. That would be a considerable contribution instead of this suicidal morass you seem to live in.
A very dark, terrifying and touching experience July 18, 2008
I didn't really know what to expect from this book and it took me a little while to get into it. The read is very easy and keeps you turning the pages. It's the kind of book that you look at the clock and suddenly it's 3AM. Some of the scenes are shocking and beautifully written at the same time. I had a little trouble sleeping after some scenes just because the terror feels so real. The protaganist is the only one whose thoughts we can hear and it drew me in completely. The book only gets better as it goes along and the ending is just perfect. It's amazing. I mean really amazing. I loved it.
"...being from a planet that no longer existed..." July 17, 2008
This is a beautiful and surprising account of a father and son - a journey of absolute endings. There are no wasted words or efforts. The language and the story are concise. The world has been destroyed; nature is burned to a crisp; the few humans that are left are scattered and not to be trusted. This father and his son are moving away from winter's coming trying to find a warmer place - nothing is considered safe - and finding food is chancy at best. I started this book and read through it in two days - not wanting to stop or put it down. I was heart broken several times in the book as the little boy becomes older and wiser than typical for his age just by observing the world. Random moments: When the two enter a house and draw a gun on their own reflections in the mirror not knowing themselves anymore. "It's us, Papa, the boy whispered It's us." Later - the father observes that to his son he is "... an alien. A being from a planet that no longer existed." Taking place in a destroyed world - the story is allowed to examine deeply the relationship between these two - trust, belief, love and questioning one another - and growing together and apart along the way.
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