Post-apocalyptic books
Post-apocalyptic books to start from. Open one to see books like it, or tell BookSense what you loved for four picks made for you.
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New to the genre? These 5 are the books to read first.
The Road
Cormac McCarthyA sparse depiction of a father and son walking across a ruined, ash-covered American continent, focusing closely on survival and moral endurance.
Station Eleven
Emily St. John MandelExamines human culture twenty years after a devastating flu pandemic through the movements of a traveling theater troupe.
Parable of the Sower
Octavia E. ButlerTracks a young woman navigating climate catastrophe, poverty, and social breakdown in early 21st-century California while founding a new belief system.
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller Jr.Follows an order of Catholic monks across centuries as they preserve scientific knowledge through recurring cycles of civilizational rise and nuclear fall.
Earth Abides
George Rippey StewartDocuments the long-term regression of technical knowledge and the emergence of new cultural myths after a virus wipes out most of humanity.
Chosen and described with AI from our notes on the genre.
Reading lists
More post-apocalyptic books
- I Am Legend
I Am LegendRichard Matheson - The Stand
The StandStephen King - Alas Babylon
Alas BabylonPat Frank - The Day of the Triffids
The Day of the TriffidsJohn Wyndham - The Postman
The PostmanDavid Brin - Riddley Walker
Riddley WalkerRussell Hoban - Oryx and Crake
Oryx and CrakeMargaret Atwood - The Death of Grass
The Death of GrassJohn Christopher - The Hunger Games
The Hunger GamesSuzanne Collins2008 - The Maze Runner
The Maze RunnerJames Dashner2009 - Divergent
DivergentVeronica Roth2010 - Short Fiction
Short FictionRobert Sheckley2021