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The books under Fiction, Culture, and History - meant to demonstrate our "current culture" - include a number of pretty bleak titles.
by bovermyer 6y ago
The books under Fiction, Culture, and History - meant to demonstrate our "current culture" - include a number of pretty bleak titles.
- arethuza 6y agoThe inclusion of Anathem and A Canticle for Leibowitz in a library intended to survive through a societal collapse does seem appropriate.
- philsnow 6y agoI usually avoid Stephenson (only because it's so wordy and I don't have much free time) and hadn't even read the wikipedia tl;dr of Anathem, but you mentioning it together with A Canticle for Leibowitz caused me to read the first few paragraphs of the wiki page for it and now I'm going to make an exception and find time to read it. Thanks!
- Vorh 6y agoMakes a pretty good reading list though
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoOn the topic of "bleak" and "societal collapse", it is notable that they chose "Blood Meridian" over "The Road" in Cormac McCarthy's works.
- throwaway43234 6y agoBlood Meridian is generally more highly regarded, no? Wiki states it's widely regarded as his magnum opus and a "Great American Novel".
- defen 6y agoBlood Meridian is an account of how we got here. If civilization falls apart to the extent that they need this resource, they'll at least presumably know how they got there and won't need a fictionalized account of societal collapse.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6y agoI'm now reading _East of Eden_ for the first time. If it's about "who we were and how we got here" I'm surprised that that there's no Steinbeck.