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A review by jdintr
Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back by Mark O'Connell
4.0
I misjudged this book after reading a review in the New York Times. I was expecting more of a travelogue that would take me to the world's bunkers and get-away locales.
Instead O'Connell shares his own fears about apocalypse--primarily environmental, but also acknowledging other sources, like the viral apocalypse that allowed me to expand my reading this summer, even as I worked less.
The reader, then, is illumined as O'Connell's mind comprehends the scenarios--from viewing Peter Thiel's New Zealand getaway to the underground silos in South Dakota. The further O'Connell gets, the more he begins to doubt the ideas behind apocalypticism itself: that the individual has to survive, that The End is somehow out of our control. This aspect was one I really appreciated.
Instead O'Connell shares his own fears about apocalypse--primarily environmental, but also acknowledging other sources, like the viral apocalypse that allowed me to expand my reading this summer, even as I worked less.
The reader, then, is illumined as O'Connell's mind comprehends the scenarios--from viewing Peter Thiel's New Zealand getaway to the underground silos in South Dakota. The further O'Connell gets, the more he begins to doubt the ideas behind apocalypticism itself: that the individual has to survive, that The End is somehow out of our control. This aspect was one I really appreciated.