Post apocalyptic books - recommendations?

[Resilienceisimportant]

Hello everyone. I have read the usual and really like this genre or very though provoking books. Last I read was Children of Time. I liked the concept but the spiders weren’t for me 😂.

Would anyone have any recommendations? Thank you!

Agreed. Recognize that you won't understand a thing for the first few pages at least, but it'll all make sense eventually. It's a splendid book.

And has reminded me of The Book of Dave, if you want some humour in your apocalypse.

'The Stranding' Kate Sawyer

I absolutely loved The Book of Koli trilogy. They're written by M. R. Carey (who wrote The Girl With All The Gifts) and are unputdownable.

I’m just coming to the end of Oryx and Crake and have really enjoyed reading it. I was hesitant to buy it previously as wasn’t totally sold on the blurb - however, a big thanks to those that recommended it and I’m really glad now that I read it. Shame that the next one in the trilogy isn’t 99p on Kindle too!

These are excellent books. I've just started reading Ridley Walker and i'm sure Carey took inspiration from him for the language.

I'm reading Zone One by Colson Whitehead. Very literary, zombie but definitely post apocalyptic.

The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell both include sections set in a post-apocalyptic world.

The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton.

The Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift.

Anything by JG Ballard or Kurt Vonnegut would fall into that category

Also Naomi Alderman The Power

All the fiends of Hell - Adam Neville. A story of a man who reluctantly ends up protecting 2 orphans in a post apocalyptic world.
The Drift - CJ Tudor - rather brilliant plotting, in my opinion
Great thread. I echo Death of Grass, The Power and Station Eleven, plus many more titles I'm looking forward to checking out.

Bro I read End of the World Running Club - liked it a lot.

Then I read Last one at the Party. Holy hell. That ending.

Yes, a very ‘left open’ ending.

I meant ‘so’ not ‘bro’ - I’m not a 13 yr old boy!!!

I found The Second Sleep in a charity shop after seeing it mentioned here and read it on holiday. I found it really disappointing and unsatisfying. It was a fairly annoying read and I stuck with it because I expected a better payoff!

Sorry posted before I meant to. I suspect I may be in the minority given the rave reviews. But it’s written like a genre I hate rather than like a post-apocalyptic novel, without enough to make it worth slogging through that.

I agree about the Second Sleep. I felt it was at best written for YA, and if aimed at adults was lazily written as if in the author's sleep.

I was just trawling the thread to see if someone had mentioned this - sort of post-post apocalypse but very good. I’d also really recommend ones already mentioned - the Silo series and Children of the Dust.

Also Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang and Jasper Fforde’s Shades of Grey series (not to be confused with 50 Shades). And Stuart Turton, The Last Murder at the End of the World.

Some great recommendations on this thread. I love dystopian fiction. Second The Handmaid's Tale, also The End of the World Running Club, Fahrenheit 451, 1984, Brave New World. Just ordered Woman on the edge of time and The book of Dave 😊

Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing is more dystopian but has a list apocalyptic feel.

I've just read The Book of Koli. It was ok, but felt a bit YA. Like he's taken elements of other novels and repackaged them to make them more accessible.

If you want an historical take on dystopia, try The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth. It's from the perspective of some Anglo saxon peasants following the Norman conquest and written in a kind of Anglo saxon hybrid language he's developed. For the locals, it's effectively the apocalypse and the whole novel is weighed down by the sense of cataclysmic change. Very bleak, but I read it years ago and can't shake it.

I love sci-fi and apocalyptic so I've read lots of the books recommended but I'm less keen on them if they are too dark. I absolutely loved We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis Taylor, I think there are five books in the series now, the first three are the best. I listened to them and they are well narrated. I often re-read but don't often re-listen because it takes longer, but I have re-listened to these.

On the Beach by Neville Shute is a classic.

If you like Adrien Tchaikovsky but not spiders then he has a good quirky one called Service Model that I really enjoyed.

I'm not usually into zombie books but I enjoyed the Zombie Fallout series by Mark Tufo because it was fairly funny as well as a bit gory. I haven't read them all though, probably only the first seven or eight.

Day by day Armageddon-JL Bourne. Written in first person in diary form, from the POV of a member of the special forces who is one of the first to hear of the impending zombie apocalypse and decides to go AWOL and keep himself alive.

I am Legend- Richard Matheson. Surprised this hasn't been mentioned already. An absolute classic, and up there with Earth Abides as pure inspiration for Stephen King.

Ohhhh thank you so much for writing this. I read this in high school but we didn't finish it. I've thought about it over the years but could not remember the name of the book. Going to read it today!

Time riders - young adult but v good series

The Stranding is currently 99p on kindle