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Original poster

apocalypse/post-apocalypse reading. anyone?

41 replies

tyaca · 28/11/2010 23:06

i really like books in which most of the world's population have been wiped out.

not bothered by genre, happy to read YA and kids books. any ideas?

My list so far...

Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake, and Year of the Flood.

Stephen King: The Stand
Jean Ure: Plague
PD James: Children of Men

God, there must be loads more. When i was a teenager, the apocalypse stuff was all nuclear holocaust. YA I've read recently has all been environmental.

Recommend me some more!

OP posts:
lalalonglegs · 29/11/2010 13:53

Was trying to remember the name of a young adult book I really loved as a teenager: "Empty World" by John Christopher - everyone gets wiped out by a plague.

ChickensHaveNoMercyForTurkeys · 29/11/2010 13:44

Children of the Dust is good. Also Famine by Graham Masterton is worth a look. The Stand is still the best, though Wink

BelligerentGhoul · 29/11/2010 13:38

There's one called 'Plague House' (I think, by Jim Crace which is okay - not in the league of The Stand but then again, little is.

The Knife Of Never Letting Go series (YA) is v good - there's a society but things have gone largely back to agriculture etc and everything has changed (including relationships between men and women).

Yes to Exodus and Zenith.

Meg Rossoff's How I Live Now is an okay-ish YA one. Lots of people love it but I wasn't blown away by it.

MegBusset · 29/11/2010 13:18

This Is The Way The World Ends by James Morrow
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Both excellent but pretty bleak. Cat's Cradle is about the most depressing book I've ever read.

Original poster
tyaca · 29/11/2010 13:12

thanks all. great list.

a few i've read and forgotten (vivid memories of reading z for zachariah on the upstairs loo as a kid!), but lots i've not heard of. or wouldn't have thought of picking up - such as charlie higson.

off to ebay now...

OP posts:
lalalonglegs · 29/11/2010 09:57

And Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, of course.

lalalonglegs · 29/11/2010 09:56

Another vote for The Road. 1984 I think would count.

lucysnowe · 29/11/2010 09:50

A Canticle for Leibowitz is an aces book.

Also: Empty World by John Christopher (easy YA read).

TheFoosa · 29/11/2010 08:33

I recently readthis warm bodies

again don't be put off by the zombies, it's a very surprisingly funny and humane read

VivaLeBeaver · 29/11/2010 08:24

Have your read Justin Cronin's The Passage. Fantastic book. Don't be put off by the "vampires", its not proper vampires but a plague that wipes out most of the population, leaves a few untouched and some are turned into weirdy vampire types trying to eat the normal ones.

RedRosie · 29/11/2010 08:16

I cried for about half an hour after finishing The Road. And it haunted me for ages.

badgermonkey · 29/11/2010 08:06

A newer one with a different take on it is Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez, set in the aftermath of a flu pandemic.

Brother in the Land is a great YA post-nuclear war novel.

DandyDan · 29/11/2010 07:59

I;m guessing you know there are three books in the Jean Ure series, Plague 99?

I'd recommend On the Beach and Z for Zachariah too.

There are YA books written in environmental diaster-times: Exodus and Zenith by Julie Bertagna are written in a flooded world scenario. I think "The Carbon Diaries: 2015" by Saci Lloyd is set in world-straitened times.

A different kind of "survival against the odds in reduced population" is more of a sideways approach: Charlie Higson's YA books, The Enemy and The Dead, where all those over the age of 15 have either died or become zombies. There are the usual post-apocalyptic issues of food sourcing and governance and knowledge loss.

Likewise, The Chrysalids and The Day of the Triffids.

Kaloki · 29/11/2010 00:02

The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
One by Conrad Williams

llareggub · 28/11/2010 23:49

Children of the Dust haunted me for years when I read it as a teen. Great book.

The Road is amazing.

KurriKurri · 28/11/2010 23:29

A couple of old ones you might like is On The Beach, by Nevil Shute, and The Chrysalids (John Wyndham), also Z for Zachariah (Robert O'Brien) and The Road (Cormac McCarthy) - I haven't read the last one, but my DS recommends it.