I've had a fascination with catastrophe fiction lately.  I touched this briefly in one of my early blogs on our old Blogspot blog in a post called "Books as Train Wrecks."

That post covered a wide variety of train-wrecky things, from imperialism and pandemic flu to destruction of the envrionment.  Today, I'd like to focus on my current obsession: disaster books.  Not just any kind of disaster, though.  The disaster of what we're doing to ourselves, our planet and our future.  Wow. This is awesomely uplifting, right? 

I'm not sure why, all of a sudden, I've been devouring these books.  They have a touch of the macabre.  They make me not want to have children.  But, in some ways, they make feel better. They help me imagine what things might happen.  They help me enjoy the here and now.  They make me think.  And they're wholly addictive.

My non-scientific review of disaster books that I'm drawn to fall into the following categories:

• The world in a non-specific future time.  Looks kind of like our world, but also many differences.
• Nonfiction books about what we're doing now and how it is going to affect our future.
• Pandemic flu books.

Here are a few of my favorites in each category.

Non-Specific Future Times

The mother of all non-specific, end times books is Cormac McCarthy's The Road. As is typical, I own the book in a first edition hardcover, and haven't gotten around to reading it.  Nor have I seen the movie.  I feel like, from reading reviews, that maybe it is just TOO much of a depressing slog?  With no redemption?  We'll see.

The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

A store associate at The King's English bookstore in Salt Lake City.  (See my blog about it here), recommended that I read The Hunger Games.  The trilogy of novels (Mockingjay comes out in August, and if anyone would like to send me an ARC, well, I'd read it!), is set sometime about 75 years after the end of the Unites States. In North America, there's a nation called "Panem" with 12 districts and a capital.  Each year, each district has to send one boy and one girl to the "Hunger Games," a nationally televised fight to the death that reminds the districts why they shouldn't rise up against the capital.  Grisly and gripping. 

Each district has a "specialty."  The protaganist, Katniss, comes from District 12, which is somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains.  Their speciality is mining. Other districts specialize in textiles, farming, and manufacturing. WARNING: if you pick up these books, you WILL NOT stop reading them until you're done. Wait for the weekend.

World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler

This book, and its upcoming sequel The Witch of Hebron, are set in upstate New York, between Albany and Glens Falls.  I used to live up there, so it was interesting to see Kunstler's take on life after government and oil.  Strip malls and McMansions are abandoned.  Horsepower really is HORSE POWER.  There's no electricity.  They literally remake their world "by hand."  I scored an ARC of The Witch of Hebron, due out in September 2010, and it was every bit as intriguing as the first novel.  I hope Kunstler makes this a series.

Life as We Knew It, trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I haven't read these YA novels yet, but they're set on earth after a giant meteor hits.  You get the picture.

Destruction of our Planet

Now, some of you probably don't think there's anything wrong with anything.  That's fine.  And, my views don't necessarily represent those of the other Pom Books staff or owner.  So, take this as you will.  I feel like we're wrecking the planet, and I feel mostly helpless about that.  One particular book that JUST hit the shelves, and has an interesting take on the situation is Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, by Bill McKibben.  He also wrote The End of Nature. 

In Eaarth, McKibben says that we've already DONE what we're going to DO to the planet, and we're living on what is, essentially, a NEW planet.  This book offers ideas about how to deal with that.  Not fix it. Deal with it.

Pandemic flu novels

When I was in sixth grade, we all had to read the book The Girl Who Owned A City, by O.T. Nelson.  It terrified and fascinated me at the same time.  We all built little models of the "city," and I vividly remember mine.  It was huge, and it was a mess, but it was fun to build.  I recently ordered another copy of the book so that I could re-read it.  Its premise is that a pandemic sweeps through and kills everyone over the age of 12.  CHAOS!

The Last Town on Earth, by Thomas Mullen

This novel is set during the Spanish Flu of 1918, in a tiny, isolated town in the Pacific Northwest.  There were entire towns that quarantined themselves to try to keep the flu out.  In this novel, that didn't exactly work.  The book touches on the decisions that the tight-knit townsfolk must make when the flu infiltrates.

The Things that Keep us Here, by Carla Buckley

I read this book on a cross-country flight from Atlanta to San Francisco.  It totally grabbed me from the beginning.  It is about a family in a mid-sized, midwestern town.  The father is an Avian Flu researcher.  There's an Avian flu with a 50% mortality rate sweeping the globe, and he identifies when it arrives in the United States.  In their town. 

I think people underestimate the things they'd do or be able to do to survive when they needed to.  Books like this explore those questions.  (Tangent:  we have some GREAT bookmarks from the author.  Pick one up with your next purchase.  It will remind you to read this book.)  I think the book was a twist between Jodi Picoult, Michael Crichton and Chris Bojahlian.

Salvation City, by Sigrid Nunez

This book is due out in September 2010, and is another novel set just AFTER a pandemic Flu has swept through the globe.  I have the ARC  (NOTE TO KATHLEEN: DO NOT LEAVE ARC BOX UNATTENDED AROUND KATIE.)  I've just started reading it, and so far, I love it.  I'll report back about it, too.  This one brings in the evangelical religious question.  When things fall apart, where do people turn?

Beach Reads?

Are these beach reads? Maybe.  It is possible to escape, and collapse into a pit of anxiety, at the same time.  Perhaps an ocean dip is what is needed while reading to keep the reader from going completely insane.  Maybe, though, these books will help me and you figure out what to do when we don't know what to do.  Or, like watching the finale of Lost, they'll help you enjoy your journey in the here and NOW.