J G Ballard
Books by J G Ballard
“The Drowned World is set in a post-apocalyptic future, in which the ice caps have melted and the planet is growing ever hotter. London is flooded; its buildings rise from steamy lagoons where once were Piccadilly Circus and Pall Mall and Trafalgar Square. You can think of it as a sort of cli-fi Heart of Darkness, with that slightly unhinged quality, and the intense heat, and this ominous ramping up of tension. As a vision of the future, it’s rather terrifying. But it’s rather beautiful too: this steamy, swampy London where alligators lurk in cloudy waters, and giant lizards roar at the sun.” Read more...
The best books on Abandoned Places
Cal Flyn, Journalist
Interviews where books by J G Ballard were recommended
The best books on Abandoned Places, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn selects five of the best books on abandoned places, including a cultural history of ruins, an account of natural recovery in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, plus two unsettling works of science fiction. Her own book, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape, is out now.
Amy Liptrot chooses the best of Nature Writing
Amy Liptrot, whose bestselling memoir The Outrun won the 2016 Wainwright Prize for nature writing, talks to Five Books about her favourite writing about landscape—and how her immersion in island life helped her recover from alcoholism.
