“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy held me captive, staying up all night immersed in its pages, awakening the next morning with a lingering sense of melancholy. Stephen King’s works, especially “The Shining,” share that unique ability to make you eagerly anticipate the next page, constantly wondering what twist awaits.
I read the entirety of The Road in one sitting while on vacation at the Oregon coast. I was on the beach in this windbreak made out of driftwood while a cold wind blew a thick gray fog across the gray sand, occasionally allowing a glimpse of the gray ocean. No sound except the wind and the sea. Every time that book is mentioned here I think of that day.