Books Completed in 2009 - Part Two
Explore compelling books completed in 2009—part two. This curated reading list features standout fiction by Charlaine Harris (Dead and Gone), Cormac McCarthy (The Road), and J.G. Ballard, alongside acclaimed graphic novels like The Sandman. Dive into a year of unforgettable reads spanning mystery, noir, and revolutionary history.
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Crash
by J. G. Ballard
In this hallucinatory novel, an automobile provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways," experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister than the last. James Ballard, his friend and fellow obsessive, tells the story of this twisted visionary as he careens rapidly toward his own demise in an internationally orchestrated car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A classic work of cutting-edge fiction, Crash explores both the disturbing implications and horrific possibilities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.
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Dead and Gone
by Charlaine Harris
The ninth installment in the series that inspired the HBO original True Blood offers another exciting undead adventure, which opens with a vampire fashion show, showing just one of the fruits of the author's unique writing style. Original.
Book
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
by Mazor, Barry
No summary available.
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Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America
by Davis, Gerald F.
No summary available.
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The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • A searing, post-apocalyptic novel about a father and son's fight to survive, this "tale of survival and the miracle of goodness only adds to McCarthy's stature as a living master. It's gripping, frightening and, ultimately, beautiful" (San Francisco Chronicle). A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other. The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation. Look for Cormac McCarthy's new novel, The Passenger, coming October '22.
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The Sandman
by Neil Gaiman
A collection of eight comics that introduce the series' lead character, the Sandman, Lord of Dreams.
