I loved The Road by Cormac McCarthy...it may be my favorite book to date.  Can anyone recommend some other good reads based on my love of this book?  Thanks! Paul

In 1993, Octavia Butler wrote a post-acoptalytic book titled The Parable of The Sower. From the inside cover: ...the odyssey of one woman who is twice as feeling in a world that has become doubly dehumanized. The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and roaming bands of "Paints," people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape, and murder.... (when I met her once I had to ask why dogs had all turned feral and agressive. Had she had bed experiences with dogs? She gave out her free easy, deep voiced laugh,...and changed the subject.) She followed the book up several years later with The Parable of The Talents. In my judgment, they are good, but not her best work, which there is considerable of. But I am a very big fan of hers. The SF world isso much smaller with her passing.

And possibly related is the great classic, The Canticles of Leibowitz.

That is A Canticle For Leibowitz. Sorry. But it has a long wish list.

I tried to decide whether to recommend a book based on subject matter or style. I've gone with a "literary" SF style rather than a post-apocalyptic setting like The Postman by Brin. I recommend Michael Chabon if you haven'y already read him. His Yiddish Policemen's Union won both the Hugo and Nebula awards. I also think you might like Gentlemen of the Road. What do either of these books have in common with The Road? Certainly not the subject matter. They all share that unique "something" - imagery, dialogue, characterization - that wins Pulitzer Prizes. Give them a try, and let me know what you think.

I really think that if you are looking for more of the satisfaction you got from reading "The Road" you should try some of Cormac Mccarthy's other works...in paticular..."Blood Meridian" is a very bleak, harsh and real view of the west and the relationship between man and the violence of the world...it is really an amazing work of American Literature.

On a more basic level..."Swan Song" by Robert McCammon is pretty good one.

Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake" and its sequel "The Year of the Flood".

IF it was the post-apocalypse world you liked, "Alas Babylon" is one of the best. It's older, but it stil holds up; about the nation after nuclear war destroys most urban centers and other parts of the nation.

I agree that Oryx and Crake is just as good if you get into this story.

Also the book 'Earth Abides" an old sci-fi classic, about one man who survives an apocalypse.

In a cross-over to another genre the book "I am legend' by Richard Matheson, describes the life and struggle of the last man on earth to survive a plague which turns everyone else into 'Vampyres'.  But the book is much better than the movie and deals with all the despair and loneliness of the last living man on Earth.

If it's the apocolyptic scenario of The Road that you liked, I would recommend:

Alas Babylon, Earth Abides, & Lucifer's Hammer

If you don't mind crossing over a bit from the post-apocolyptic genre to vampires, you would probably enjoy these books immensly:

Vampire Winter by Lois Tilton (one of my very favorite books of all-time), Afterage by Yvonne Navarro, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson - all are really good post-apocolyptic stories, not romantic vampire crap.

:)

I would also agree with Alas Babylon by Pat Frank and I am Legend by Richard Matheson. And just a comment: in my opinion, the novel I am Legend is infinitely better than the movies. The recent Will Smith movie is almost a completely different story. So don't discount the book based on the movie.

Don't forget 'The Postman' by David Brin (much better than the Kevin Costner flick just like 'I Am Legend)

How about Wolf & Iron by Gordon R. Dickson?