Next Book Discussion: The Road

Just a reminder that we'll be meeting this Saturday, October 6 at 2 p.m. to talk about Cormac McCarthy's book The Road.

Below are some websites about the book in case you want to do any preliminary research.

Oprah's Book Club
Oprah chose The Road for her book club several months back (transforming the book into an instant bestseller). Besides analyses, background information, and discussion, Oprah's website also features her television interview with the publicity shy author, Cormac McCarthy.

New York Times
Janet Maslin's book review says, "The Road would be pure misery if not for its stunning, savage beauty."

Author William Kennedy wryly observes in his review that, "McCarthy has said that death is the major issue in the world and that writers who don’t address it are not serious. Death reaches very near totality in this novel."

Image: Viktor Koen, New York Times.

Washington Post
Ron Charles' review points out that, "The fear of dying, so prevalent in McCarthy's previous novels, is balanced here by the fear of surviving.


Newsweek
Malcom Jones book review says, "...the question that the novel implicitly poses—how much can you subtract from human existence before it ceases to be human?—takes on heartbreaking force."

SF Chronicle
In his review, librarian David Hellman interprets McCarthy's message as "...in the end, we have only what we can hold onto right now, in this place and at this moment."

For more in depth literary analyses, search on these two databases: Novelist and Literature Resource Center. You can find them on library's Online Resources webpage. (You'll need you library's barcode number to access them.)