Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library Reader Advisory Blog: postapocalyptic

Showing posts with label postapocalyptic. Show all posts

Post-apocalyptic thrills in new series starter 'Devil's Wake'

For an exciting start to a thrilling new paranormal series, try Devil's Wake by husband and wife writing team Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, coming out on July 31st. When an unprecedented infection sweeps across the world, humanity must fight for control of Earth against a sinister alien life-form. Trapped in the northwestern United States as winter begins to fall, Terry and Kendra have only one choice: they and their friends must cross a thousand miles of no-man's-land, battling ravenous hordes, human raiders, and their own fears. In the midst of apocalypse, they find something no one could have anticipated . . . love.

New Release: America Pacifica by Anna North

For fans of doomsday novels like Cormac McCarthy's The Road, this debut novel about one of the last habitable places on Earth may be a good next read. After an Ice Age descends upon the planet, the fictional island America Pacifica is one of the last places that supports human life. It doesn't take long for a strict heirarchy to establish itself, with ordinary people like Sarah and her 18-year-old daughter Darcy at the bottom eating jellyfish and seaweed while a privileged few at the top dine on steak and potatoes. When Sarah mysteriously goes missing, Darcy discovers that her mother is involved in a clandestine resistance movement, and that nothing will ever be the same for either mother or daughter on this postapocalyptic island nation of American Pacifica.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

Genre: Adult Non-Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

"Being Mortal is about the limitations of what modern medicine can provide for people as their lives draw to a close. Gawande argues that the objective of medicine should not merely be treatment and survival; medical care should also ensure dignity in death and having control over one's final moments. He argues that instead of aggressively fighting the inescapable realities of aging, we should ask the hard questions of ourselves and our loved ones -- What makes life worth living? When should we try to extend our lives, and when should we choose a better quality of our remaining days over extending their quantity?

This book is difficult to read. Not because of the way Gawande writes -- his style is highly engaging, and he never lapses into excessively scientific jargon or overly simplistic explanations -- but because of the tough subject matter. Gawande draws on his own experiences as a doctor and peppers his book with honest and humane stories of his patients, friends, and family; the stories he tells make the book more accessible, and also more heartbreaking. (And that's not a bad thing.)

No one likes to think about their loved ones', or their own, impending mortality. But it's important to have these hard conversations, because as Gawande says, "endings matter." - Amanda