Andy's first post

Below, guys, are posts that my friend Andy and I shared before you guys got started over here. I don't have time to post anything new, unfortunately, though I would be eager to join the current discussion (Sam and I, for instance, don't have the same read of Nietzsche, and that would be fun to pursue). Cest la vi. Here's what Andy and I have posted, one at a time:

Andy: well i took my break from the USA Trilogy, and picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road. no idea what i was in for.
i'd heard good things about the book, but i wasn't crazy about All the Pretty Horses -- the only other book i'd read of his, nor the movie of No Country for Old Men, which i'd seen recently. well, this one got me. just absolutely killed me. i've been twisted up and moved, but i don't think i've ever wept while reading a book before.
it reads that way, but i sat down with it for the first time and looked up 100 pages later. couldn't stop reading it, and i read the last few pages over and over. the book dominated my thoughts for a few days afterwards -- made me pause in the middle of work.
i'll say that being a father with my own personal circumstances, and my boy across the country from me for the days while i read it, made me especially susceptible and raw. but i believe the book would move anyone just as well.
i was also curious to note, just fliipping through the wikipedia article, George Monbiot heaping such praise on it from an environmental perspective. the "environmental" angle of the book, the interrelatedness of all life on the planet, was striking, though i wouldn't have guessed that activists would raise it up as a thing that "could save the planet".
do read this before it's made into a movie.