The most recommended disaster books

Given the alarming number of recent deaths by gun violence it is especially illuminating to consider the various ways sites of violence have been commemorated.

Ranging from total disappearance, to informative plaques, and major memorials, communities have reckoned with the aftermath in radically different ways.

I loved this book because it made me think about the content of site - or rather the content we attribute to the ground - where something shocking happened, be it a mass shooting or any other tragic event. 

Pynchon’s Against the Day stages a form of pantheism in which everything bears some form of consciousness, which, like nature, has no border. Cyprian considers that “the earth [might be] alive, with a planet-shaped consciousness”; and it is “as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice.” Pynchon’s characters live in a pantheistic universe in which everything is part of nature and alive—where the wind tries to wake them and the world has a consciousness. Pynchon updates Melville in Mardi, in which, e.g., a character asks, “Think you there is no sensation in being a tree? Think you it is nothing to be a world? [The world of] Mardi is alive to its axis.” In ATD, “the steel webwork was a living organism”; even an “egg yolk [can be] perhaps regarded as a conscious entity.” Consciousness can’t be confined to people: all entities have the potential… show more.

If you don’t have much time to read, this is the one for you. Offill is known for her brevity - her 2014 novel Dept. Of Speculation (equally worth your time) is similarly short, and similarly shot through with humor - and for the punch she can pack into a limited space. In Weather, she brings together the mundane grind of daily life with the larger existential terror many of us experience when we think about climate change, and bridges that gap, forcing her characters to confront how their daily lives are in fact not separate from these bigger concepts at all.

Judith Rodin is one of the more extraordinary influencers of resilience thought and practice. As President of the Rockefeller Foundation, she oversaw the 100 Resilient Cities initiative. The initiative may not have been as "sticky" as many hoped, but the lessons from this experience continue to inform and spur action in cities worldwide. This book gives us a sense of her thinking and vision in driving the initiative. It does not hold all the answers, and many take issue with her perspective. Nonetheless, it is a must-read for anyone thinking about protecting our cities. In an ideal world, I'd love to see Judith Rodin write the next book with Juliette Kayyem, former US Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, drawing on all that we've experienced over the last tumultuous decade. 

We can all think of cities that have been hit by some horrible events – envision Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, hit by atomic weapons. Or the Oklahoma City bombing that leveled a whole block. Yet these cities not only survived, but thrived. In chapters written by different experts from around the world this book shows how resilient cities are to shocks and disasters. I especially liked the way that the authors focus on the way that we memorialize and remember the past, trying to learn lessons from shocks and bringing those emotions and learning into the present.

In Seveneves the crises start coming and never stop coming.

The sudden, inexplicable destruction of the Moon and the resultant catastrophic rain of debris destroys habitability on Earth. A small population of refugees escapes into space to keep the flame of humanity alight.

Naturally, the inhospitality of interplanetary space and conflicting factions of survivors plunges the journey into resource depletion, rampant cancer, attempted coups, and a population bottleneck, but I found that the ending concludes a surprising story of human connection, even when the definition of human has radically changed. 

We have all seen disaster movies and TV shows with people screaming and running around as the earthquake, tsunami, or Godzilla strikes. But Rebecca Solnit argues instead that normal people don’t panic during disasters – it is the elite, the wealthy, and the decision-makers who lose their minds. For normal people, altruism and mutual aid help all of us get through shocks, whether fire, car accident or COVID19. Her writing is excellent and she uses examples across time and space, ranging from the San Francisco earthquake at the start of the 20th century to the Mexico City earthquake at its end.

I don’t really consider myself a history buff, but I do love hearing a funny story where someone screws something up, and, apparently, I really love a funny story where someone screws something up that has immense historical consequences.

And, boy howdy, there is apparently no shortage of screw-ups causing major inflection points in history. I certainly laughed out loud multiple times while reading this book, and one time in particular I was so animated that my dog was concerned enough to come check on me.

My friend read a critical book arguing that John Christopher’s apocalypse novel had been forgotten. Not by me, she said. “I read it in 1972, and I can remember every word - the terror of the tale and how everything collapses so rapidly.” I immediately ordered The Death of Grass and discovered an uncannily contemporary Penguin Classic, published in 1956 and more frightening than Lord of the Flies.

In this ecological apocalypse, the virus that kills all Leersia Oryzoides - grass, rice, wheat, oats, barley, and rye - originates in China. The earth dies slowly, famine looms, and civil society breaks down in three days. Two families escape from London, seeking safety in a northern hidden valley. I read the book in two sittings, thrilled, breathless, terrified. 

This classic award-winning book is a must-read for anyone interested in traumatic events. Sociologist Kai Erikson was the first to equate a major disaster with individual and community upheaval, based on the 1976 Buffalo Creek dam flood. He details how this event traumatized individuals and caused a breakdown of community relationships and a rise in crime, unethical behavior, and major out-migration. Many of the emotional and social effects of disasters had not been discussed or treated when this book was written. Much has been learned since. However, Erikson stresses that many of the psychological and sociological problems continue to exist when calamities occur today and must be resolved.