apocalypse/post-apocalypse reading. anyone?

[tyaca]

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!

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.

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

The Road is amazing.

The Electric Church by Jeff Somers
One by Conrad Williams

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.

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.

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

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.

I recently readthis warm bodies

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

A Canticle for Leibowitz is an aces book.

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

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

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

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

Just read The Passage (did a thread on it) and thought it was excellent!
Well written and gripping. There is an end but it's ultimately the first of three- second book due in 2012 I've been told.

Has no one mentioned Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban? Modern post-apocalypse classic - the Guardian has been doing it as their readers' book club book this month - here.

The Jim Crace is "The Pest House" - I'd forgotten about that. Also second the John Christopher "Empty World" and the Robert Swindells - Brother in the Land.

Doris Lessing 'Mara and Dan' is worth a read.

Earth Abides. Which I found one of the more credible visions of a post-disaster world.
Must confess that The Road annoyed me.

For a more horror kind of feel to your apocolypse:

Cell by Stephen King - great for technophobes!

and for a bit of fantasy with your apocolypse:

Armageddons Children
Elves of Cintra
The Gypsy Morph
This is a trilogy by Terry Brooks - some of the best Apocolype stuff I have ever read, and I have read a fair bit. Absolutely haunting.

One of my favourite post-apocalyptic stories is 'Solitude' in the collection 'The Birthday of the World' by Ursula le Guin.

Looooooove The Chrysalids. The Road is ok but I read The Hours at the same time (not at all post-apocalyptic I know) and thought it looked at the same question of what it means to be human in a much more female friendly way. McCarthy all a bit boy and Hemingway for me.

But Riddley Walker? Possibly the best book EVER WRITTEN.

I loved Cell- I was surprised to find it was panned by the critics.
I thought it was pretty good?