The End: 50 Apocalyptic Visions from Pop Culture That You Should Know About...Before It's Too Late

Gr 9 Up—No cultural medium goes unexamined in this compendium of 50 apocalyptic visions of the world. Moving fluidly between fine art, mega-hit movies, obscure plays, comic-book series, and everything in between, the author explains how all have looked into the future and seen the end of life as we know it. Barcella describes each work in detail and then provides background and context, explaining what was going on in the world that may have contributed to the creator's particular vision of the end of the world. Reality checks, interesting quotes, thoughts about the wider impact on the culture round out each entry. In an introduction, Barcella explains that she spent a lot of time trolling through plenty of end-of-times material but doesn't specify how she landed on these specific 50, so the list feels vaguely random, but in a fun, surprise-on-every-page kind of way. Michelangelo's The Last Judgment comes not long after cult favorite Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and a few page turns before V for Vendetta, a comic-book-series turned movie. Teenagers and adults alike will find this an entertaining book to thumb through, searching for familiar works as well as exploring some of those less well known. Readers of dystopian novels may find this collection particularly intriguing. Plenty of people will have their own ideas about what should have been included, but this particular collection is varied and interesting.—Jody Kopple, Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA