The Road (Oprah’s Book Club) by Cormac McCarthy is a searing post-apocalyptic novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and became a national bestseller. Published on March 28, 2006, by Vintage, this gripping tale follows a father and son as they traverse a burned-out America in search of safety. The landscape is desolate, with ash falling from an endless gray sky and the bitter cold cracking stones. Despite the bleakness, their bond remains unbreakable, each being the other’s world entirely. They carry only a pistol for defense against marauders, tattered clothes, a cart of scavenged food, and each other. McCarthy’s powerful narrative is both haunting and beautiful, exploring themes of ultimate destructiveness and the desperate tenacity that sustains life in the face of total devastation. The book, with 287 pages, has been recognized as one of The New York Times‘s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century and a Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century.