The Postman — David Brin

He was a survivor - a wanderer who traded tales for food and shelter in the dark and savage aftermath of a devastating war. But when he borrows the jacket of a long-dead postal worker, his life changes forever. As he journeys from one isolated community to the next, the old, worn uniform becomes far more than a protection against the unrelenting cold: it becomes a reminder of how things were before the world collapsed - and a symbol for how things might be again. And his story becomes one of a lie that turns into the most important kind of truth. Against a background of global failure, THE POSTMAN is a powerful and affecting novel of the survival of the human spirit from the author of the award-winning Uplift novels.