I’m not a fan of deeply introspective novels so this really something I would have been drawn too if I knew more about it going in. I always thought I was a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, but I’ve found I’m really a fan of post-apocalyptic zombie fiction. Earth Abides is a remarkable book, though, and I can appreciate it for the work Stewart put into it. I think I would be a fan of his non-fiction more than speculative sci-fi. (Not a fan of sci-fi at all.) ( )

Did not finish, badly written. ( )

Published in 1949, I was amazed that the book did not seem dated at all. Obliques references and keeping the story on track helped to achieve this aura of timelessness. The beginning was very good but, towards the end it became long and drawn out. I still enjoyed it and found it hard to put down. ( )

Mediocre post-apocalyptic novel assigned in my Sociology of Intentional Communities class. The protagonist finds himself a survivor of a global epidemic and searches out others with whom to found a community. The book spans several decades and we witness the development of a community calling themselves "The Tribe" as grows from a handful of middle-aged, middle-class white folks into a multigenerational neo-primitive society with a unique culture.The author tries to confront the following issues:-What is the value of trying to preserve the intellectual and cultural products of Western Civilization when they have no apparent survival value?-How can the community balance its dependency on the material leftovers of a dead civilization with the need to develop new skills that will soon become necessary for survival?The book completely neglects the challenges posed by the environmental pollution which our civilization leaves behind, but it was written in the 50s, so that's probably too much to ask.It loses points simply for the fact that it begins and and ends with the same line, which also contains the title. Did I mention that the author was an English professor? ( )

It took a long time to come from a "distant" library but I finally read Earth Abides this week. It was appropriate to read now because we are up at our house in Vallejo, which is near San Francisco. It was a little eerie reading this story so close to the area where the story takes place. I can easily visualize the area because I've been there so many times. I was born “in the shadow” of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The book tells about a young man who, after spending several weeks alone in a cabin in the mountains, returns to his home in the East Bay area to discover that most of the human population of the earth has been wiped out by a plague. This is the first post-apocalyptic novel I have ever read and I found it interesting how the author envisioned the future after this catastrophe. It was written 1949 and so to younger readers it would seem dated in some ways but the human reactions and how they dealt with the event could generate a lot of discussion in a book group. I found it fascinating. I'm putting it in my classic category instead of science fiction even though the library doesn't agree with me. I didn't see anything fictional about the science in the book (although my scientist husband would call some of it "fuzzy science!") and it doesn't seem to be fantasy. It's about something that didn't happen, which makes it fiction, but it isn't about something couldn't possibly happen so I don't consider it fantastical.

I had another eerie experience reading this book. The nonfiction book I was reading at the same time was Travels with Charlie about the 1960 trip Steinbeck took to “explore America.” In Earth Abides the protagonist, Ish, takes a cross country trip to see what has happened in the rest of America after the catastrophe. My mind kept comparing Ish’s journey with Steinbeck’s trip as I read Travels. I seem to frequently have these kinds of coincidences when I read—unusual connections between disparate stories.

Bottom line: An interesting,, thought provoking look at how people might react to a global catastrophe. It would make a good Book Group discussion, imo. Highly Recommended ( )