The End of October


Lawrence Wright - 2020
    Henry Parsons, an unlikely but appealing hero, races to find the origins and cure of a mysterious new killer virus as it brings the world to its knees.At an internment camp in Indonesia, forty-seven people are pronounced dead with acute hemorrhagic fever. When Henry Parsons--microbiologist, epidemiologist--travels there on behalf of the World Health Organization to investigate, what he finds will soon have staggering repercussions across the globe: an infected man is on his way to join the millions of worshippers in the annual Hajj to Mecca. Now, Henry joins forces with a Saudi prince and doctor in an attempt to quarantine the entire host of pilgrims in the holy city... A Russian émigré, a woman who has risen to deputy director of U.S. Homeland Security, scrambles to mount a response to what may be an act of biowarfare... already-fraying global relations begin to snap, one by one, in the face of a pandemic... Henry's wife Jill and their children face diminishing odds of survival in Atlanta... and the disease slashes across the United States, dismantling institutions--scientific, religious, governmental--and decimating the population.

Fahrenheit 451: The Authorized Adaptation


Tim Hamilton - 1953
    It is a mantra, a duty, a way of life in a tightly monitored world where thinking is dangerous and books are forbidden.In 1953, Ray Bradbury envisioned one of the world's most unforgettable dystopian futures, and in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the artist Tim Hamilton translates this frightening modern masterpiece into a gorgeously imagined graphic novel. As could only occur with Bradbury's full cooperation in this authorized adaptation, Hamilton has created a striking work of art that uniquely captures Montag's awakening to the evil of government-controlled thought and the inestimable value of philosophy, theology, and literature.Including an original foreword by Ray Bradbury and fully depicting the brilliance and force of his canonic and beloved masterwork, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 is an exceptional, haunting work of graphic literature.

Cloud Cuckoo Land


Anthony Doerr - 2021
    Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead


Max Brooks - 2003
    Fully illustrated and exhaustively comprehensive, this book covers everything you need to know, including how to understand zombie physiology and behavior, the most effective defense tactics and weaponry, ways to outfit your home for a long siege, and how to survive and adapt in any territory or terrain.Top 10 Lessons for Surviving a Zombie Attack 1. Organize before they rise! 2. They feel no fear, why should you?3. Use your head: cut off theirs.4. Blades don’t need reloading.5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it. 7. Get out of the car, get onto the bike.8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert!9. No place is safe, only safer. 10. The zombie may be gone, but the threat lives on. Don’t be carefree and foolish with your most precious asset—life. This book is your key to survival against the hordes of undead who may be stalking you right now without your even knowing it. The Zombie Survival Guide offers complete protection through trusted, proven tips for safeguarding yourself and your loved ones against the living dead. It is a book that can save your life.

I Am Legend


Richard Matheson - 1954
    but he is not alone. Every other man, woman and child on the planet has become a vampire, and they are hungry for Neville's blood.By day he is the hunter, stalking the undead through the ruins of civilisation. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for the dawn.How long can one man survive like this?

Time and Again


Jack Finney - 1970
    Falling in love with a beautiful young woman, he ultimately finds himself forced to choose between his lives in the present and the past.A story that will remain in the listener's memory, Time and Again is a remarkable blending of the troubled present and a nostalgic past, made vivid and extraordinarily moving by the images of a time that was ... and perhaps still is.

The Possibility of an Island


Michel Houellebecq - 2005
    It is a masterpiece from one of the world's most innovative writers.

The Fellowship of the Ring


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1954
    But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

The Shadow of the Torturer


Gene Wolfe - 1980
    It is the tale of young Severian, an apprentice in the Guild of Torturers on the world called Urth, exiled for committing the ultimate sin of his profession - showing mercy toward his victim - and follows his subsequent journey out of his home city of Nessus.

The Machine Stops


E.M. Forster - 1909
    Rarely do they even leave their own rooms, in which all of their needs are met by the Machine. The Machine allows the humans to communicate "ideas" with one another, which is essentially their only activity. It doesn't stop them from leaving their rooms, but they have little desire to do so anyway. They've started to believe the Machine is omnipotent and omniscient, not to be questioned. And when it begins to malfunction, they trust that it knows what it's doing--forgetting they invented it in the first place . . .From the author of A Passage to India, A Room with a View, and other classic novels, and a sixteen-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, this remarkable science fiction story, which was included in a Science Fiction Hall of Fame anthology, was published in 1909--yet becomes more relevant and thought-provoking with each passing day of the twenty-first century.

The Sunlight Pilgrims


Jenni Fagan - 2016
    There's snow in Israel; the Thames is overflowing; and an iceberg separated from the Fjords in Norway is expected to drift just off the coast of Scotland. As ice water melts into the Atlantic, frenzied London residents evacuate by the thousands for warmer temperatures down south--but not Dylan. Grieving and ready to build life anew, he heads north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands where they once lived. Hundreds of miles away, twelve-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, scrape by in the snowy, mountainous Highlands, preparing for a record-breaking winter. Living out of a caravan, they spend their days digging through landfills, searching for anything with restorative and trading value. When Dylan arrives in their caravan park in the middle of the night, life changes course for Estella and Constance. Though the weather worsens, his presence brings a new light to daily life, and when the ultimate disaster finally strikes, they'll all be ready. The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature's most violent hour. It's by turns an homage to the portentous beauty of our natural world, and to just how strong we can be, if the will and the hope is there, to survive its worst.

Crime and Punishment


Fyodor Dostoevsky - 1866
    He imagines himself to be a great man, a Napoleon: acting for a higher purpose beyond conventional moral law. But as he embarks on a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a suspicious police investigator, Raskolnikov is pursued by the growing voice of his conscience and finds the noose of his own guilt tightening around his neck. Only Sonya, a downtrodden sex worker, can offer the chance of redemption.

Tales of the Dying Earth


Jack Vance - 1998
    Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents ever to grace the world of science fiction. His unique, stylish voice has been beloved by generations of readers. Some of his enduring classics are the 1950 novel The Dying Earth and its sequels, The Eyes of the Overworld, Cugel's Saga, and Rialto the Marvelous.

Foundation


Isaac Asimov - 1951
    Now it is dying. But only Hari Seldon, creator of the revolutionary science of psychohistory, can see into the future -- to a dark age of ignorance, barbarism, and warfare that will last thirty thousand years. To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire -- both scientists and scholars -- and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation.But soon the fledgling Foundation finds itself at the mercy of corrupt warlords rising in the wake of the receding Empire. Mankind's last best hope is faced with an agonizing choice: submit to the barbarians and be overrun -- or fight them and be destroyed.

1984


Michael Dean - 1949
    He fights this world with love. But it's dangerous: love for another person can be punished by death - and Big Brother is always watching.Orwell's classic story shows that there is no freedom unless ideas and beliefs can be questioned. This is as true today as when it was written, more than fifty years ago.