We have an Adult Summer Reading program this season! Visit our SRP page for all the upcoming happenings!
The next Books & Beyond discussion club will be Tuesday, June 24th at 6:30pm in the Library’s Conference Room. This is one of our biannual Salon Discussions where there is no assigned topic. Read, watch, and listen to anything you’d like and come share with the group! If you’d rather attend online, register with your email address to receive a Zoom link a week ahead of the meeting: https://oneallibrary.org/event/11282324
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental
disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The
result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that
enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women.
Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of
Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even
her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a
scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative
suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic.
The Last of Us (series)
After a global pandemic destroys civilization, a hardened
survivor takes charge of a 14-year-old girl who may be humanity's last hope.
Donate by Emma Ellis (not in the JCLC)
Mae finds herself pregnant in a world where the global
population has hit twenty billion, and governments decree that no child may be
born without a life being sacrificed in return. With growing unrest and
violence towards pregnant women, Mae must navigate a hostile world to secure a
future for her unborn child — no matter the cost. When the stakes are so high,
how far would you go to protect your family?
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the
nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts.
Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of
the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to
appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a
fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives
alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when
she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and
level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or
be killed.
Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a
depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this
explosive, hotly-anticipated debut.
Rollerball (1975)
The year is 2018 in a futuristic society where corporations
have replaced countries. A violent futuristic game known as Rollerball is the
recreational sport of the world, with teams representing various areas. One
player, Jonathan E., fights for his personal freedom and threatens the
corporate control.
Running Man (1987)
In the year 2019, America is a totalitarian state where the
favorite television program is "The Running Man" -- a game show in
which prisoners must run to freedom to avoid a brutal death. Having been made a
scapegoat by the government, an imprisoned Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger)
has the opportunity to make it back to the outside again by being a contestant
on the deadly show, although the twisted host, Damon Killian (Richard Dawson),
has no intention of letting him escape.
Grievers by Adrienne Maree Brown
Dune’s mother is patient zero of a mysterious illness that
stops people in their tracks—in mid-sentence, mid-action, mid-life—casting them
into a nonresponsive state from which no one recovers. Dune must navigate
poverty and the loss of her mother as Detroit’s hospitals, morgues, and
graveyards begin to overflow. As the quarantined city slowly empties of life,
she investigates what caused the plague, and what might end it, following in
the footsteps of her late researcher father, who has a physical model of
Detroit’s history and losses set up in their basement. She dusts it off and
begins tracking the sick and dying, discovering patterns, finding comrades in
curiosity, conspiracies for the fertile ground of the city, and the unexpected
magic that emerges when the debt of grief is cleared.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an
uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult
supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from
civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses,
as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of
adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued.
Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut
Deadeye Dick is Kurt Vonnegut’s funny,
chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence. Amid a true Vonnegutian
host of horrors—a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation,
an annihilation of a city by a neutron bomb—Rudy Waltz, aka Deadeye Dick, takes
us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness. Here is a tale of crime
and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe . . . and who we say we
are.
Viriconium by M. John Harrison (not in the JCLC)
Available to American readers for the first time, this landmark collection gathers four groundbreaking fantasy classics from the acclaimed author of Light. Set in the imagined city of Viriconium, here are the masterworks that revolutionized a genre and enthralled a generation of readers: The Pastel City, A Storm of Wings, In Viriconium, and Viriconium Nights.
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of
Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest
seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising,
the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the
island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore. A novel of
breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark
Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we
love, even as the world around us disappears.
All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall
All the Water in the World is told in the voice
of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers
melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have
stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the
roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the
exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as
they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a
superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape
north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of
the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety,
they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes
frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to
make a new world that honors all they've saved. Inspired by the stories of the
curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from
war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what
we save from collapse and an adventure story―with danger, storms, and a fight
for survival.
Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
On an ordinary Saturday, Julia awakes to discover that
something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are
growing longer and longer, gravity is affected, the birds, the tides, human
behavior and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world of danger and
loss, Julia faces surprising developments in herself, and her personal
world—divisions widening between her parents, strange behavior by Hannah and
other friends, the vulnerability of first love, a sense of isolation, and a rebellious
new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born
storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker gives us a breathtaking story of people
finding ways to go on, in an ever-evolving world.
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
In this revelatory account, Alan Weisman explains how our
massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human
presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as fossils; how copper
pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of
our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic,
bronze sculpture, and radio waves may be our most lasting gifts to the
universe.
As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our
highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman draws on every field of
science to present an environmental assessment like no other. This is narrative
nonfiction at its finest―one of the most affecting portraits yet of humankind's
place on this planet.
How It Ends (2018, Netflix)
Worried about his pregnant fiancée
amid a sudden cataclysm, a young lawyer embarks on a dangerous road trip west
with his future father-in-law.
The Midnight Sky (2020, Netflix)
A lone scientist in the Arctic races to contact a crew of
astronauts returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe.
Paradise (series, Hulu)
“Paradise” is set in a serene community inhabited by some of
the world’s most prominent individuals. But this tranquility explodes when a
shocking murder occurs and a high-stakes investigation unfolds.
The series stars Sterling K. Brown, James Marsden, Julianne
Nicholson, Sarah Shahi, Nicole Brydon Bloom, Aliyah Mastin and Percy Daggs IV.
Silo (series, Apple TV+)
In a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant
underground silo that plunges hundreds of stories deep; there, people live in a
society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Based on the Silo Saga novels by Hugh
Howey.
Touched by Walter Mosley
Martin Just wakes up one morning after what feels like, and
might actually be, a centuries-long sleep with two new innate pieces of
knowledge: Humanity is a virus destined to destroy all existence. And he is the
Cure.
Martin begins slipping into an alternate consciousness, with
new physical strengths, to violently defend his family—the only Black family in
their neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles— against pure evil.
High Times in the Low Parliament by Kelly Robson
Lana Baker is Aldgate’s finest scribe, with a sharp pen and
an even sharper wit. Gregarious, charming, and ever so eager to please, she
agrees to deliver a message for another lovely scribe in exchange for kisses
and ends up getting sent to Low Parliament by a temperamental fairy as a
result.
As Lana transcribes the endless circular arguments of Parliament, the debates
grow tenser and more desperate. Due to long-standing tradition, a hung vote
will cause Parliament to flood and a return to endless war. Lana must rely on
an unlikely pair of comrades―Bugbite, the curmudgeonly fairy, and Eloquentia,
the bewitching human deputy―to save humanity (and maybe even woo one or two
lucky ladies), come hell or high water.
Users by Colin Winnette
Miles, a lead creative at a midsize virtual reality company
known for its “original experiences,” has engineered a new product called The
Ghost Lover. Wildly popular from the outset, the “game” is simple: a user’s
simulated life is almost identical to their reality, except they’re haunted by
the ghost of an ex-lover.
However, when a shift in the company's strategic vision puts The Ghost Lover at
the center of a platform-wide controversy, Miles becomes the target of user
outrage, and starts receiving a series of anonymous death threats. Typed notes
sealed in envelopes with no postage or return address, these persistent threats
push Miles into a paranoid panic, blurring his own sense of reality, catalyzing
the collapse of his career, his marriage, and his relationship with his
children.
Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama (manga)
In this post-apocalytpic sci-fi story, humanity has been
devastated by the bizarre, giant humanoids known as the Titans. Little is known
about where they came from or why they are bent on consuming mankind. Seemingly
unintelligent, they have roamed the world for years, killing everyone they see.
For the past century, what's left of man has hidden in a giant, three-walled
city. People believe their 100-meter-high walls will protect them from the
Titans, but the sudden appearance of an immense Titan is about to change
everything.
Attack on Titan (anime series, 2013)
When man-eating Titans first appeared 100 years ago, humans
found safety behind massive walls that stopped the giants in their tracks. But
the safety they have had for so long is threatened when a colossal Titan
smashes through the barriers, causing a flood of the giants into what had been
the humans' safe zone. During the carnage that follows, soldier Eren Jaeger
sees one of the creatures devour his mother, which leads him to vow that he
will kill every Titan. He enlists some friends who survived to help him, and
that group is humanity's last hope for avoiding extinction at the hands of the
monsters.
Villainous Things and Villains in Space by C. Rochelle (not
available in JCLC)
MM romance between superheros and villains. This is not your
kid’s superhero book. This is Sin City and The Boys having
a love child with extra spicy Spideypool and is meant for 18+ adults who
can handle such things.
Literary Hub recently published a great article discussing nonfiction in this genre: https://lithub.com/nonfiction-against-the-end-of-the-world-an-apocalypse-reading-list
Descriptions pulled from Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, Netflix, Hulu, and Apple TV+.
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