Ozymandias is the name

There's a reason I don't call it Dave's Nonfiction Warehouse: Of the 50 or so books I've read so far this year, only a few have been nonfiction, most given to me by friends or family. But the best of those, The World Without Us, is just as compelling as any mystery or thriller I've picked up.

You've probably heard of it: What would happen to the Earth if all humans vanished? Maybe there's something in all of us that likes to imagine a world all to ourselves -- even as we ignore the basic premise that none of us can be around to see it. Who wouldn't like a stroll through Times Square without the crowds, and no sound but the wind?

But if you ever do wake up as the only person left on the planet and have a hankering to see the Big Apple, you should get there pretty soon. According to author Alan Weisman, things will start going to hell in about two days, starting with the flooding of the subway system. In just five years, the city could be ablaze, thanks to lightning and ruptured gas lines.

The book isn't just about the collapse of all man has wrought in modern times, although those sections are the most entertaining. It also examines the things that are likely to survive for millennia, none of them good: greatly elevated levels of CO2, and a whole lot of PCBs, plutonium and plastic.

Oh, and maybe four very worn faces at Mount Rushmore. I like to think of some alien archaeologist happening on those and thinking, "Hmmm. These must be the Beatles."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sleuths are only as good as their sidekicks

Image
I recently read the much-lauded Wash This Blood Clean From My Hands , by French author Fred Vargas, and like many others found it quirky and engaging. Her deft writing left me happy to have found another series character to follow: Commissaire Adamsberg. But that's not what this post is about. I've decided that others do a lot better job with reviews than I do, and I hate laboring over my shallow insights only to find later that I've echoed what everybody else said a long time before. (And yes, I can hear you saying: "But that's never stopped you before." True enough. Nor will it now.) So, short version: Wash This Blood is a good book. Buy it. But for all the talk about it being "eccentric" or even "kooky," it does share one key device with nearly all other detective fiction: the sidekick. Adamsberg's reliance on gut instinct and intuition is sharply defined by the hard-nosed, scientific approach of his second in command, Capitaine
Read more

That ship has sunk

Image
After a long career in journalism, I'm back in the job market. For a limited time only. All I require are a company car, a five-figure signing bonus and a six-figure salary. If somebody could swing by and clean the house once a week, that would be great too. Until then, guess who's going to be blogging like there's no tomorrow. I've worked at various newspapers for the better part of three decades. I've been a reporter and an editor and there was a time in the mid '90s when I thought I was being very clever by learning HTML. I was thinking: Job security, baby; every newspaper will be on the Internet in a few years. I was right about the last part. But it turns out most people eventually questioned the wisdom of paying for what they could get free. Who knew? Then circulation and ad revenue headed south, and corporate boards figured they could maintain profits by shrinking the product and letting people go. Now circulation and ad revenue are Thelma and Louise: st
Read more

Back to the keyboard -- but it's a new one

Image
After a writing hiatus of quite a few months longer than I intended, I'm back to work on what I will refer to as "the book." I knocked out another 500 words yesterday, and expect to make that the standard day's output. But since I've had these productive impulses before, and since they tend to expire after about a week, I'm employing a few other strategies. First: A new computer! Yep, I have decided that there are too many games on my desktop machine, it's too noisy, and it confines me to one room of the house. So I ordered a new notebook computer from Dell. It's their new 1420 model. Should be here in a couple more weeks -- although you never know with Dell -- and then the only files I'll transfer from my old computer to the new one are my in-progress writing projects. I know what you're thinking: Basically, I'm offering myself a cheap bribe to a commit to a project that will probably take a year -- long after the shiny new computer cease
Read more