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Margaret Atwood's "The Blind Assassin" is a difficult, tricky book to classify. It blends many sub-genre of fiction to create such a unique literary amalgam, it defies characterization. Essentially the story of a woman on a quest to unravel the reason behind her younger sibling’s suicide, it may, at first, feel like a mystery, but is far too well developed to be simply left at that. Atwood uses that oft repeated technique of a novel within a novel (written by the protagonist's deceased sister - a futuristic sci-fi, love yarn where the titular blind assassin falls in love with his victim) to such amusing, liberating and tantalizing affect, that by the time you reach the white knuckle ending, your head will be reeling in disbelief at the surprising, unexpected outcome. The book is not just very well written (Atwood's use of the English language is sublime), it is also compellingly readable all the way through. A personal favorite, and a book that leaves a stunning, indelible impression on its readers.

Art Spiegelman's 'Maus' is a rare commidity in the world of comic books. It tells the story of the writer/artist's father, Vladek Spiegelman, who was a holocaust and Auschwitz survivor during WW2, in the form of a biopic, and how the effects of those days long gone resonated with the resulting generation that continued to live. As an honest portrayal of people/human beings, the book is without parallel. Taking a leaf of its storytelling technique from George Orwell's classic 'Animal Farm', the characters are represented by animal/rodent equivalents. The Polish Jews are Mice (hence the title of the book), the Nazi's Cats, the American's Dogs and so on. The use of this method allows the book to not just show us easy visual distinction (this is a comic book afterall), but also make a metaphor out of these representations (Cats hunt Mice, Dogs chase Cats etc) about the nature of survival in an unjust, unbalanced world. Spiegelman's choice of including even those portions of the auto biographical story where he visits his father at his home in New York to talk to him and convince him to tell his story is, in a word, brilliant. Such a technique would be hard to accomplish in a conventional book with only text, without having to break away from the story being told to inform readers of the change in setting, but here it works just right. Also commendable is the honesty with which the book is written; none of the fathers broken, imperfect East European English is doctored to sound correct - it is conveyed in its preserved original manner, therefore statements such as "Better to spend your time making drawings, what will bring you some money" are found often, sometimes to amusing effect. The two volume books together offer a terrific, unputdownable read, that is fluid and without complications. They are not without their flaws though - Volume 2, the self righteously titled "And here my troubles began" is indulgent and self aware. It tarnishes the harsh tone of the fathers staggering survival tale and mellows it out with a story arc about the son (Art) coping up with a father (and hence family life) that he never understood but which he was affected by. Visits to therapists, coming to terms with his mothers suicide after they moved to New York etc offer an alternative to the story we wish we would rather not have read, for in the face of tale of human suffering and determination, this warrants little interest. Despite this minor setback late in the tale, the overall book is a unique amalgam of the visual power of comic books and the simplistic abilities of the written word. A graphic novel worthy of its universal praise and a watershed in the world of realistic non-superhero comic books.

The Road is a novel that features a science fiction setting, but not the little geeky bits that make most science fiction novels lose their humanity. It is set in a Post-Apocalyptic world but feels real enough to be a reflection of our race a few years from now. In this setting are a father and son, who are making a journey across America's burnt, barren landscape. There are entire cities and towns that are devoid of population or food or people. Everyone has died and our two protagonists perceive themselves as the only survivors of this world, making their way to the coast, where they hope to find something - perhaps an escape, perhaps a safe heaven. The journey forms the bulk of the book and the writing is more descriptive than situational. Author Cormac McCarthy (also the writer of No Country for Old Men) establishes a unique style that does the bleak outlook of his setting much justice. The spoken conversations are sparse, but the little that is there is elliptical and highly transcendent. Much of it is between the father, a man who will go to any length to protect his son, and his child, a curious little boy with little of his fathers world weary attitude to survive on his own. The threat of the setting comes in many forms. There are those sent forth by nature in the form of drizzling ash (hinting at a post nuclear fallout), extreme snow and rain, dust, forest fires and everything else that would make tree huggers nod in agreement. There is also the anticipation of not knowing who, if anyone, they might meet on their long journey through every town that they pass. Many pieces of dialogue evoke a sense of poetic irony. Unlike other such pop-culture settings (I am legend etc), there are no surprises about what is in store. You are able to believe with the conviction of the very strong writing that the father and son might die, if nothing else, due to starvation, and that provides enough fuel for the book to move along in a manner that never allowed me to put it down. It is on the strength of its observations and some very powerful literature that the books goes above and beyond the genre conventions expected of it and delivers a haunting, profound tale of the bonds that tie us.