Reading Lately

I've been doing a bit more reading lately and have recently finished 2 books that I thought I would give my impressions on.

I mentioned the first book, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, in a previous post. This book was awarded the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and in my opinion deserved it. It was a really interesting, powerful book. To summarize, it is the story of a father and son who are struggling to survive and make their way south in a post-apocalyptic world. While the story doesn't explain exactly how, civilization had been destroyed and there are few good people left in the world. I won't give away too much, but the story does an excellent job of showing the struggles that the father and son go through and the emotions that come with these struggles. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.

The second book was a short novel (novella?) by Michael Chabon titled The Final Solution. The story, set during World War II, revolves around a retired English detective, a young Jewish refugee and the search for a parrot that has gone missing. The characters are all very well portrayed, and the plot is an worthwhile detective story. In an interesting side note, as it mentions in the Barnes and Noble Review by Elizabeth McMillan, one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Authur Conan Doyle was titled The Final Problem, and while not stated, it is definitely implied that the retired detective in The Final Solution is in fact Holmes. I personally enjoy reading Chabon's work, and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in a quick, character driven, mystery story.

Up next is either Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris or Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which releases next Tuesday.