Books like After World — picked by fans

A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all: Welcome to The Ministry of Time, the exhilarating debut novel by Kaliane Bradley.

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats” from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a… show more.

Part coming-of-age summer romance, part thriller, Bomb Island is a funny and fast-paced Southern novel exploring subculture communities, survival, and found family set on an island near an unexploded atomic bomb.

Summer is in full swing on Bomb Island, Georgia. Fifteen-year-old Fish lives in a commune on the three-mile stretch of sand with his chosen family: their "mother-sage" Whistle and her white tiger, Sugar, a young man named Reef, and an old man named Nutzo, who is still missing. Fish and Whistle spend the days leading tours in their glass bottom boat out to the barrier island's namesake, an… show more.

Humanity has spread to the stars...

For the first time in thousands of years, we have also discovered the Other. The alien. A being so unimaginably complex that it makes us all look like children.

The PCS Blue Cherry Blossom, a long range interstellar freighter, is tasked with the ultimate voyage. What lies at the heart of the galaxy? Who and what is out there? Is it even possible to survive?

Against a backdrop of relentless political and corporate maneuvering, a new crew sets out, prepared to risk their lives and their deaths to set forth into the void and… show more.

Kyle Seibel's debut short story collection is a bracing look into the lives of society's misfits.

From a junkyard worker haunted by the death of a special cat to dinosaurs that materialize to dispense life advice—these stories explore the thin line between the mundane and the surreal.

Hilarious, poignant, gritty and bizarre, Hey You Assholes heralds the arrival of a bold new voice in American fiction.

Revised Edition with New Afterword from the Author

Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

Over 3 million copies sold in 35 Languages

"On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go."

What if mankind disappeared right now, forever... what would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our… show more.

“I can allow myself to write the truth; all the people for whom I have lied throughout my life are dead…” writes the heroine of Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall, a quite ordinary, unnamed middle-aged woman who awakens to find she is the last living human being. Surmising her solitude is the result of a too successful military experiment, she begins the terrifying work of not only survival, but self-renewal. The Wall is at once a simple and moving talk — of potatoes and beans, of hoping for a calf, of counting matches, of forgetting the taste of sugar and the… show more.

A biologist reveals the secret world hidden in a single square meter of old-growth forest--a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pen/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award 

Look out for David Haskell's new book, The Songs of Tree: Stories From Nature's Great Connectors, coming in April of 2017

In this wholly original book, biologist David Haskell uses a one- square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.

Each of… show more.

Outer Space, Inner Lands includes many of the best known Ursula K. Le Guin nonrealistic stories (such as "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," "Semley’s Necklace," and "She Unnames Them") which have shaped the way many readers see the world. She gives voice to the voiceless, hope to the outsider, and speaks truth to power—all the time maintaining her independence and sense of humor.

Companion volume Where on Earth explores Le Guin's satirical, risky, political and experimental earthbound stories. Both volumes include new introductions by the author.

Praise for Ursula K. Le Guin's short stories:

“She is the reigning… show more.

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A “fiercely intelligent . . . daring, and very moving” about an English village haunted by one family’s loss—for readers of The Virgin Suicides and Zadie Smith’s NW (George Saunders, The Paris Review Daily).

Midwinter in an English village. A teenage girl has gone missing. Everyone is called upon to join the search. The villagers fan out across the moors as the police set up roadblocks and a crowd of news reporters descends on what is usually a place of peace. Meanwhile, there is work that… show more.