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Notes from an Apocalypse

A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back

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Notes from an Apocalypse

Written by: Mark O'Connell
Narrated by: Mark O'Connell
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Summary

 "Harrowing, tender-hearted, and funny as hell" —Jenny Offill
“Fascinating…Oddly uplifting” —The Economist
"Smart, funny, irreverent, and philosophically rich" —Wall Street Journal

By the author of the award-winning To Be a Machine, an absorbing, deeply felt book about our anxious present tense—and coming to grips with the future

We're alive in a time of worst-case scenarios: The weather has gone uncanny. Old postwar alliances are crumbling. A pandemic draws our global community to a halt. Everywhere you look there's an omen, a joke whose punchline is the end of the world. How is a person supposed to live in the shadow of such a grim future? What does it mean to have children—nothing if not an act of hope—in such unsettled times? What might it be like to live through the worst? And what on Earth is anybody doing about it?

Dublin-based writer Mark O'Connell is consumed by these questions—and, as the father of two young children himself, he finds them increasingly urgent. In Notes from an Apocalypse, he crosses the globe in pursuit of answers. He tours survival bunkers in South Dakota. He ventures to New Zealand, a favored retreat of billionaires banking on civilization's collapse. He engages with would-be Mars colonists, preppers, right-wing conspiracists. And he bears witness to those places, like Chernobyl, that the future has already visited—real-life portraits of the end of the world as we know it. In doing so, he comes to a resolution, while offering readers a unique window into our contemporary imagination.

Both investigative and deeply personal, Notes from an Apocalypse is an affecting, humorous, and surprisingly hopeful meditation on our present moment. With insight, humanity, and wit, O'Connell leaves you to wonder: What if the end of the world isn't the end of the world? Environment Personal Development Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Psychotherapy Safety & Emergency Preparedness Science Funny Heartfelt Witty Feel-Good Comedy
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I give the review the above tile with only slight jest, as I actually liked the book. But to add context it was good, but definitely not great and the reader should go in being aware what they are getting into. The author is occasionally funny, but frequently pessimistic and always vocal about what he hates about our world (use of fossil fuels, capitalism, and globalization) which I found difficult to constantly hear. His ‘investigation’ of other people who also obsessed with end of the world is not so much of an investigation as he does not try to understand other viewpoints, but more of him looking into these other people / groups to criticize them. It is only near the end of the book that he seems to find some (albeit small) hope that life may not be a horrible experience. I would suggest he read Dan Carlin’s The End is Always Near to get some context on these thoughts, but kind of think that everyone sees what they want with the future and a pessimist will always see how horrible things could be and make the present worse with the anticipation.

The neurotic musing of a left-wing pessimist

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