Children of Men, by P.D. James

This is one of the cases in which the movie is better than the book, but to be fair, the movie is really good–and the book is the perfect thing to read if you’re sick of thoughtful, overly ponderous lit-ter-a-ture. I don’t even like mysteries or dystopian premises that much (with the huge exception of LOST, of course), but the basic concept–that all of a sudden, the entire world stopped being able to have children–is so interesting and really, just so basic, that this book is worth reading. And P.D. James is a straight-up mystery writer (and incidentally, also a baroness), so Children of Men doesn’t feel as clogged as the equivalent Margaret Atwood thing would. Authors who are capable of writing legitimately good mysteries seem to me to be tapping into some old-fashioned desire for structure, and P.D. James herself says that her favorite author is Jane Austen: these stories are cleanly figured, precise, and if you’re lying by the pool and want to read something other than an old issue of whatever magazine you just found, check this out.

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