Well whaddayaknow! I finally did it. My task to read the Times Top 20 books of the Naughties has been completed. It only bloody took me over a year! Don’t get me wrong I read other books along the way. I’m slow, but I’m not THAT slow. Also, I’ve pretty much had the most eventful year-and-a-bit of my life during it. I got married, moved to a new house, continued to develop my own business, went on two holidays, been to three weddings, my own stag do in Cardiff and shit load of other stag do’s.

The final book, and therefore the Times’ Number one book of the Naughties, wasn’t a let down. It really is a great book. It’s a hard slog, and almost draining to read. I can’t help but think of the word GRIM. The book is set in the future after the world has experienced some kind of apocalyptic event (we never find out any details) and we are following a father and son as they head south to warmer climate and the promise of something better.

The book’s main subject is centered around the father justifying survival of both himself and his son. Coming to terms with the prospect of ending both his son and his own life. What is there to live for after all? The earth is now a barren, grey, wasteland with no-one except the occisional survivor. There are some disturbing moments in the book. Definitely up there was the moment the dad holds a gun to his son’s head about to pull the trigger completely convinced in his reasoning.

This was a pretty small book. And it had to be. I actually read most of it on a flight to London for my good mate Duncan’s wedding. See pics here.

I do recommend it, but if you can’t stick too much of that kind of tone then give the movie a try.

Rating:

Here is a list of the books I read  as part of my the project. Remember, some of the books were removed from the list as I had already read them; I asked people to recommend books to fill the gap in the comments of this post.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy	Rating:
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi	Rating:
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama	Rating:
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger	Rating:
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth by Margaret Atwood	Rating:
Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald	Rating:
Suite Fransaise by Irene Namirovsky	Rating:
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell	Rating:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel	Rating:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers	Rating:
Atonement by Ian McEwan	Rating:
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night by Christopher Brookmyre	Rating:
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler	Rating:
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi	Rating:
Animal Farm by George Orwell	Rating:
Rapture by Carl Ann Duffy	Rating:
The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen	Rating:
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre	Rating:
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen	Rating:
White Teeth by Zadie Smith	Rating:

My favourite was Atonement as you can see from the ratings. I have a wee soft spot for Suite Fransaise too. Especially ‘Part 2′ of that book. I highly recommend you check both of them out.

So yeah. It’s been emotional, as a mate in work would say. I have no clue what to blog about now though. haha. I am however, looking forward to reading any book I want. This project has really opened my eyes to books I would never have picked up otherwise. I’ve learned a lot and it has strengthened my love of reading. So, in short, everything that I intended to get out of this hair-brained project.